


Worlds Enough and Time

by Rainne, secondalto



Category: Captain America (Movies), Doctor Who (2005), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F/M, Jack Harkness Flirts, M/M, Time Travel, co-writing late at night makes us a little goofy, slightly cracky, the authors regret nothing, we don't need no stinkin' canon, what is this I don't even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-01-26 21:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondalto/pseuds/secondalto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes and his best friend Steve Rogers, along with the rest of the Howling Commandos, boarded a train in the Alps on a hunt for Arnim Zola.  By misfortune, Bucky fell from that train, and Steve was unable to save him.  </p><p>That fall was a fixed point in time; it cannot be changed.</p><p>What happened after, though?  Well, that <i>can</i> be changed.  Especially if you have a TARDIS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Aenaria and to Citymusings for reading this story, tearing it apart, pointing out its many flaws and weak spots, and helping to make it better. Without the two of you, this would undoubtedly suck really hard.
> 
> Also, I (Rainne) would like to thank Secondalto for being my awesome sister from another mister, sharer of my whimsical brainpan. When I suggested this little plot bunny, she sat up with a manic gleam in her eye and said to me, "LET US WRITE THIS BRILLIANCE." In that moment, I knew she was batshit crazy. (That's a lie; I've always known she was batshit crazy.) 
> 
> And I (Secondalto) would like to thank Rainne for being my awesome sister from another mister, awesome braintwin. She has the best ideas, and I can't wait to do it again. I think that makes us both crazy. (But we wouldn't have it any other way.)
> 
> We would both like to thank you, dear reader, for coming along on this cracked out, whacked out flight of fantasy. Hope you enjoy the ride!

They say it's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.

For Bucky Barnes, it was neither.

Up until the very last second, he'd been sure Steve would save him. Steve had always been the kind of guy who could do anything with nothing; now that he had a body to match that heart and that spirit, Steve really _could_ do anything. Only it turned out that Steve couldn't reach any farther than his arm let him, and then that bolt broke, and all Bucky could think was _Steve_ and all he could see was the horrified expression on Steve's face as he vanished in the swirling snow.

The landing, well, that hurt like hell; there was no getting around that.

He hadn't moved since hitting the ground; it seemed like a lot of effort to put in when he was pretty sure he was going to die anyway. And he  _was_ fairly certain that he was going to die; most of the bones still attached to him were probably broken, and some of them weren't attached any more; he knew, because he could see his left arm, and it was lying about four feet away. He wondered if there were any other pieces that weren't attached, but the effort required to lift up and check, well... he just really didn't have it in him right then.

He drifted.

Drifting was nice, because it was warmer inside his head and Steve was there. He got a little confused; sometimes Steve was big, but sometimes he was still little and skinny. Either way, he was there, and sometimes he curled around Bucky and held him close, but sometimes he curled up with his head on Bucky's chest. He was talking to Bucky, telling him that everything was going to be okay, that he'd be all right, help was on the way. He reached up and stroked Bucky's face the way he had sometimes done on balmy spring nights when they lay curled up together in bed, or on summer nights when they lay on the floor together, too hot to do anything but sweat.

Bucky had known he was queer for Steve before he'd really known what it meant to be queer; his father would've probably killed him if he'd known, but his mother had understood. She understood about Steve, and she quietly encouraged Bucky to love who he loved even as she warned him about his father and about how the world at large viewed such things. “Ye got to be careful, Jamie me lad,” she'd told him, her voice thick with the old country. “It's not many folks as understand how it is sometimes, but the Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. It's not me who'll tell ye otherwise.”

Bucky hadn't known Steve was queer for him until after Steve's Ma died. He'd got sick again, all by himself in that shitty apartment and this time with nobody to look out for him; when Bucky hadn't seen him for a couple of days, he went over there to check on Steve and found him shivering on the couch, burning up with fever. Steve's eyes had been glassy when Bucky woke him from a fitful sleep to find out if he'd taken any medicine - of course he hadn't - and Bucky went down to the druggist on the corner that knew Steve and Steve's Ma. He sold Bucky a course of those new antibiotic drugs and gave him careful instructions on how Steve should take them and how to get the fever down. By the time Bucky got back, Steve was nearly delirious, and somewhere in his ravings, he let on about how he felt.

Bucky was nothing if not patient; he waited until Steve was better before confronting his friend. Faced with the knowledge of what he'd said, Steve hadn't even tried to deny it. Instead, he'd got that look on his face like he always did when he was staring straight into a beat-down and he'd said yeah, he was queer for Bucky, and he understood how Bucky didn't feel the same way, but -

He hadn't been able to say much else, what with Bucky's mouth on his, but that was good enough for both of them and they'd been together ever since. And they were careful, sure - you had to be, in that day and age, and Bucky could defend himself against one or two guys, but five or six of them with tire irons and chains were a different story, and Stevie couldn't hold his own against one drunk asshole in an alleyway outside the bar where the queens all went on Friday nights.

Leaving him alone to go to war was the hardest thing Bucky had ever done.

When they strapped him to that table in the crazy little German's lab, Bucky had prayed for the first time in a very long time. But he hadn't prayed for himself. He knew, in his own mind, that he was going to die. And he figured he'd maybe spend some time in Purgatory atoning, not just for the queer thing but for other stuff, too, but that was okay. He'd get where he was headed eventually. No, his prayers had been entirely pointed elsewhere.  _Jesus and God and Mary and all the saints and angels,_ he'd prayed,  _please look out for Stevie. He's little and sickly and somebody's got to take care of him if I'm not gonna be there any more._

He opened his eyes, delirious, to find Stevie kneeling over him in the snow, telling him everything was going to be all right. He blinked. No. That wasn't Steve. That wasn't anything like Steve, no matter how his mind tried to substitute. Steve was

_(five foot nothing, blonde hair, weighs about ninety-five pounds soaking wet)_

six feet tall now, and two hundred or more pounds of pure muscle stuffed into a kinda silly-looking blue suit. This guy was as tall as Steve, sure, but he was skinny as hell, and he was wearing a pinstriped three-piecer and a trench coat and talking with an English accent. And he had a woman with him - a tiny little dynamo, all red hair and curves, and they were lifting him up out of the snow and carrying him through a narrow doorway into - into -

Everything went black.

***

Donna read the tags the man was wearing as they got him settled into the med bay.  _Barnes, James B._ The next line was a sequence of numbers, a letter at the end. Donna knew this was his blood type but the TARDIS would figure that out for herself. The next few lines were the name and address of his next of kin - probably his mother, given how young he looked. Lastly there was a stark ‘C’ stamped on the tag. Donna was C of E but she said a few words for James anyway. There was something about his name that tugged at her mind.

“  Excuse me, Doctor,” she said softly as he fluttered around the bay, making sure James was getting the best care the TARDIS could offer.

She went to the control room, and the TARDIS had what she needed: a keyboard and a screen, ready for her. Donna stroked the railing in appreciation. She typed in the man’s name and a flood of information scrolled across the screen. Her hand went to her mouth, not suppressing a gasp.

“  You can’t say anything, Donna,” said the Doctor from behind her. His face was grim and resolute.

“  But… he’s Captain America’s best friend,” she said.

“  He’s so much more than that,” the Doctor replied. “To him, history is still happening. Anything we tell him could affect the timeline.”

“  So what are we gonna do with him? Put him back where we found him?”

“  Nah,” the Doctor said with a grin. “Think he deserves better than that, don't you? We let the old girl see if she can fix him up; if not, we take him somewhere that can. I know just the place.”

***

Bucky woke up to find himself surrounded by bright lights and whirring noises. This wasn’t a hospital. Had he been dreaming those people, like he’d been dreaming of Steve?  _ Steve!  _ He tried to sit up but he set off some kind of alarm, and the skinny guy and the redhead came barreling in.

“  Oh, good, you’re up,” the man said, checking one of the machines and stopping the alarm.

“  Who are you? Where am I?”

“  Oh, yes, hello, I’m the Doctor,” the skinny man said, offering his hand.

“  Doctor who?” Bucky asked, shaking automatically.

The redhead giggled. “Never gets old, that does. I’m Donna by the way. Now settle back down and get some rest. You had a bit of an incident.” She pressed gently on his right shoulder, pushing him back down.

Bucky did a quick check of himself. He ached all over, but it didn’t seem as serious as it had been when he’d been lying there in the snow. Except... his arm. He didn’t want to look, but he turned his head anyway to see that it was definitely gone.

“  Sorry about that,” the skinny man - the Doctor - said, running a hand through his hair. “The arm was too damaged from the fall. The TARDIS couldn’t reattach it. But I know where we can get a really good prosthetic so it’ll look good as new.”

“  A pros-what?” Bucky asked.

“A replacement,” the Doctor explained. “It'll be lovely. Don’t worry, we’ll get you right as rain soon enough.”

“  Whatever you say, Doc.”

The redhead, Donna, came over and fussed with the blankets. “Now you need to rest there, James. I can get you some food if you like, or anything else you might need.”

“It's  Bucky. Nobody’s called me James in years, ‘cept my Ma. And I’ll take anything from a good looking dame like you,” he grinned, giving her a broad wink.

“  Go on, you,” she blushed, leaving the room.

“  You seem pretty calm about all of this,” the Doctor said.

“Man, my best friend since childhood grew a foot and a half and put on a hundred pounds of pure muscle in the space of a coupla months, right before pullin' me and a hundred other guys out of a HYDRA base with no backup. At this point, I f igure anyone who can fix me up and make me not dead is okay in my books. Unless you’re HYDRA. And you never did say where I was.”

“  I’m not HYDRA. They’re a bunch of fools who… I can’t tell you about. As for where you are, well… this is my ship. She's called the TARDIS.”

“  TARDIS?”

“  It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.”

Bucky raised one eyebrow. “In space?” he repeated. “Nah! You're havin' me on! Where am I really?”

“No, it's true,” the Doctor replied. “Can't show you here; no windows. Tell you what, though - you take a bit of a rest, and eat whatever Donna brings you, and I'll prove it. All right?”

“Fair enough,” Bucky agreed amiably. 

The Doctor clapped him on his shoulder. “Good man. And no worrying about the arm, all right? By this time tomorrow, you'll never even know it was gone.”

“Yeah, Doc,” Bucky replied. “You bet.”

Donna bustled in then, carrying a huge bowl of split pea soup on a tray. The Doctor obligingly raised the head of the medical bed, and Donna set the tray across Bucky's lap. He stared into the bowl; the soup was absolutely thick with ham. He raised his head and stared at her. “Where'd you get all this ham?” he asked softly. “That's half a month's ration.”

Donna shared a glance with the Doctor before looking back at Bucky. “Not any more,” she said simply.

Bucky pushed the tray away. “I think maybe it's time for you to tell me where I  _really_ am.”

The Doctor sighed heavily. “Bloody rationing,” he grumbled. “Come on, then. Just remember, if you fall over halfway there, I told you to eat and rest first.” He moved around to Bucky's right side and helped the soldier off the bed. Bucky groaned softly at the ache of moving, but allowed the Doctor to keep him steady. They left the med bay and made their way up a short hallway and into...

He froze in the doorway, staring around. If it  _was_ HYDRA, it wasn't any damn HYDRA lab he'd ever seen before. He couldn't even begin to describe it to himself. Everything was a dingy sort of orange, and the support struts looked like coral, like they'd been grown instead of built. There was a huge central tower covered with switches and levers and lights, and off to one side, a narrow set of doors. It was in this direction that the Doctor led him, Donna following along with the tray in her hands.

The Doctor flung the doors open and Bucky stared, his mouth open in shock.

“What?” he gasped. “But... how?”

“I told you,” the Doctor replied. “Space.”

“Technically,” Donna said softly, “It's the time vortex.”

Bucky moved closer to the doors, staring out at the view. “It's beautiful,” he murmured. He stared around at the soft lavender clouds that surrounded them, streaked with pink and blue like a summer sunset; the occasional flash of lightning; the whip of comets and the billow of stardust, and the vast, star-spangled blackness of deep space beyond it all. He looked down, noting that the ship itself was resting on absolutely nothing but more of the same, and up, seeing even more in that direction as well.

“I'm guessin' I ain't in Kansas no more, huh?” he said, glancing around at Donna.

She gave him a gentle smile. “Now will you come and eat before you pass out?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yes ma'am.”

After half a day spent resting in the med bay, the Doctor decided it was all right for Bucky to be up and wandering around.

“  Just, don’t go into the pool, it’s… occupied at the moment. The library is all yours. If you get lost, just give a shout; the TARDIS will guide you back. And don’t mind her if she dotes on you a little. She likes taking in strays.”

Bucky just nodded, not sure how to take that. But later on when Donna guided him to a bedroom, he may have gaped. It was fucking huge, bigger than he’d ever seen in his life. There was a bed at the far end, large enough to fit even Steve and maybe the rest of the Commandos as well. There was a bathroom off to the side. Bucky didn’t even blink at taking the chance to be clean, really clean for the first time in… forever it seemed. The hot water went on for days and there was a warm towel waiting on the sink when he stepped out.

“  Thank you?” he said, feeling a little awkward. 

The light in the room went a little pink, and he grinned. Still had the old charm and it even worked on a spaceship. He sat on the edge of the tub for a moment, thinking about that. He was in  _ space _ . Steve would have gotten such a kick out of all this. Right out of those pulp magazines he liked to read. Would he get to see Steve again? How was he coping? Did he think Bucky was missing? Dead? He'd have to talk to the Doctor about that. For now he was going to try out that bed.

***

“  Is he doing all right?” Donna asked.

“  Yes, it seems so,” the Doctor answered. “He’ll be better once we get him to New Earth.”

“New Earth?” she asked. “No, don’t tell me, I don’t want the long boring explanation. I want to know what you plan on doing once we’ve got Captain America’s best mate fixed up.”

“Whatever we like, Donna,” the Doctor replied, grinning broadly. “We're time travelers.”

“Yeah,” said Donna, “but you're missing something pretty important.”

“What's that?” the Doctor asked.

“Captain America's best mate is _dead_.”

***

The Doctor didn't give Bucky much time for the questions he wanted to ask; instead, within minutes of Bucky staggering, sleep-mazed and time-lagged, into the control room the next morning, he was whisking the young American into the lobby of a huge, brilliantly white hospital and turning him over to a cat-woman in a nurse's costume.

The cat-woman, who introduced herself as Sister Wenn, led them into an elevator and called for Ward Seventeen. “Oh, mind the disinfectant,” the Doctor said as the elevator began to rise.

“The what?” Donna asked.

“Disinfectant,” the Doctor repeated.

A calm female voice said, “Commence Stage One disinfection.” A tiny alarm sounded, and some form of cool liquid sprayed from the ceiling. Donna shrieked; Bucky jumped in surprise. The Doctor merely closed his eyes, tilting his head back into the spray. When it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, it was followed by a puff of powder, and Bucky grumbled but figured it was probably better than other ways of being deloused. The powerful jet of warm air that came afterward to dry them all was very welcome, and by the time they arrived at their floor, they were dry and more or less back into proper form.

Sister Wenn led them to an unoccupied bay, prompting Bucky to hop up onto the table and asking him to remove his shirt. He did so, and she tutted around him for a few minutes, carefully examining the stump of his left arm. “Excellent healing,” she said, nodding at the Doctor. “It's been well cared for. I assume the lost limb was irretrievable? No matter; replacing it won't be difficult at all.” She gave Bucky a gentle pat on his right shoulder. “Novice March will be here momentarily to discuss your options.”

Thoroughly bewildered, Bucky merely nodded. The cat-woman left. Bucky looked around at the other patients in the ward, surprised by what he saw. On one end of the room, a man whose skin had gone bright yellow was hovering - hovering! - above his bed; not far away, there was another man who looked like he was turning to stone. Bucky gave the Doctor a significant look. “This place is fucked up,” he mumbled.

“It's the year five billion and fifty-nine,” the Doctor replied. “Human race has all sorts of new diseases you've never seen before.”

Before Bucky had a chance to respond, another cat-woman had arrived, carrying three small discs. “Good afternoon,” she said, giving them a respectful nod. “I'm Novice March. Sister Wenn asked me to come and show you your options for prosthetics.”

“Oh, sure,” Bucky replied, giving the young woman a smile.

She actually blushed - who ever made a cat blush?! - and fumbled with the discs. “This is the first one,” she said. “It will look perfectly human in every way.” She flicked a switch, and the disc displayed a holographic image of a man with two perfectly normal arms. Bucky stared in shock at the hologram, but the novice set it aside and flicked a switch on the second one. “This one is a bit basic,” she said. “As you can see, it's skeleton-only. There  _are_ a variety of exoskeletal covers available for it, but this is the basic model.”

Bucky examined the holo of the man with one arm that seemed to be made out of metal piping. “No,” he said. “I don't think so, not that one.”

The novice nodded, flicking it off again and setting it aside. “The third one is the newest option,” she said. “It's very versatile. There are a huge number of options - sonics and lasers in the fingertips, even covert weaponry, for the individual in need of self-protection. The biggest drawback is that it currently can't be made in flesh-tone; the synthetic skin interferes with the additional gadgetry.”

Bucky examined that hologram and noted the difference. The arm in question was metallic, made of what looked like a variety of interlocking plates. He leaned toward the human one, just because it was human, but on the other hand... “You said lasers?” he asked.

The novice grinned.

Two hours later, when Bucky was done, he stood there smiling, flexing the hand and listening to it whir. Donna tried not to stare, but wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“  Can I touch it?” she asked.

“  I think there’s someone who might have something to say about that,” Bucky replied with a wicked grin.

“What, him? Not bloody likely,” Donna gasped . “He's not my boyfriend!”

“I actually meant someone else, but that was some pretty impressive conclusion jumping you did there, ” Bucky drawled, grinning as Donna went red with outrage. “So, where can I test this bad boy out?”

“Firing range on the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “We’ve taken up enough of the good sisters’ time. You know, according to the brochure, not only does it have lasers, but it can be adapted with other attachments. Oooh, look, sonic fingers!”

“  Does that sound as dirty as I think it does?” Bucky said.

“  Only if you want it to,” the Doctor replied.

Bucky just chuckled and grabbed Donna’s hand. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s see what this spaceship of yours can cook up for me.”

“  She’s not my….” Donna objected. She didn’t finish the sentence because she was too busy trying to keep up with Bucky and the Doctor as they prattled on about sonics and lasers and aliens.  _ Boys _ .

***

Donna took Bucky down to the firing range while the Doctor went wandering, muttering something about a back storage room and extra sonic attachments for Bucky's arm. It took a few tries for him to work out what he was doing with the arm - the Doctor had explained the neural attachments, and the surgeon had given him a quick rundown of how to work the thing, but practice was the only way to really figure it out. Within a couple of hours, though, he was firing lasers out of a tiny wrist-mounted cannon like a champ, grinning broadly and wondering what Steve was gonna think about this fancy piece of tech.

The thought stopped him cold and he turned to face Donna. “So, what happens now?” he asked her.

Donna raised an eyebrow. “What d'you mean?”

“I mean, do I go home now? You and the Doc, you'll take me back to base, drop me off with the boys, yeah? They need me - I'm the only sharpshooter on the team, and Stevie's gonna be a wreck, thinkin' I'm dead after that fall. So you're gonna take me back, right?”

Donna swallowed hard, moving to a nearby seat. There was a data pad lying on a table nearby and she picked it up, pressing buttons absently. “Sit down, Bucky,” she said gently.

Bucky sat down. He looked down at his hands for a minute, rubbing at the metal one with the flesh one, and then he looked back up at her, taking in the expression on her face. “This ain't gonna be good, is it, Doll?”

“No,” Donna said softly, “I'm afraid not.”

He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “Lay it on me.”

Donna cleared her throat. “I can't tell you everything,” she said. “But I can tell you this. Just a few days after you fell, your friend Steve - that's Captain America - and the rest of your team attacked a HYDRA base in the Swiss Alps. They succeeded in taking the base, but the leader, the one they called the Red Skull, was escaping in an aeroplane carrying enough nuclear material to destroy the entire eastern coast of the United States.”

Bucky swallowed hard. “Go on.”

Donna scrolled down the page she was looking at. “Captain - I mean, Steve, your friend - he got onto the plane and fought the Red Skull. And he won.”

“You got a look on your face says there's a 'but' comes after that.”

She nodded, unable to look up at him. “But he wasn't able to turn the plane round. It went down in the coastal ice off Greenland and was never found.”

“Never.” Bucky stood up, pacing, and ran a hand through his hair. “Never found. But it can't be never found, Donna. It's only _been_ a few days since I fell. Unless - I mean, how long was I out, Donna?”

“Just a day,” she said. “But Bucky... you have to remember... the Doctor and I, we're time travelers.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he said, “What year is it for you?”

She swallowed. “I shouldn't say any - ”

“ _What year is it for you?_ ”

Her response came in a whisper. “2008.”

“2008,” Bucky repeated. “2008. Hell, Steve'd be ninety years old in 2008. I'd be ninety-one.” He ran a hand through his hair again, pacing back and forth. Then he whirled on Donna. “But wait. You said it went down off the coast of Greenland, right? But you know when that was. And you said it yourself - you're time travelers. So we could go there, right? In time. And then when he crashes the plane, we could go get him, same as you got me, right? And then he'd be okay.”

“We can't,” the Doctor's voice said, cutting across the room. “I'm sorry. The death of Captain America is a fixed point in time. It has to happen. It has to happen the way that it happened. And if we interfere, the entire universe could be destroyed.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at Bucky mournfully across the firing range. “I'm so very, very sorry.”

Bucky tried unsuccessfully to blink back the tears that came.  _Gone._ Steve was gone. In the blink of an eye his whole world had crumbled. He flexed and the cannon disappeared back into his new arm. Then he rushed out, pushing the Doctor out of his way and ignoring Donna calling his name.

He stormed off, not really sure where he was going. How big was this fucking thing anyway? Somehow, in the middle of a corridor that he’d never been in before, the door to his room appeared. Probably the TARDIS. He didn’t want to try and wrap his brain around it right now. He went in and slammed the door behind him.

He threw things. Pillows, vases, the mirror over the dresser. All of them smashed to the floor. He used his newly tested laser to blast at the bed, causing the sheets to catch fire. There was the blare of a siren and suddenly water was spraying from the ceiling. It was then that he collapsed. He sat in the middle of the floor and hung his head. The water stopped.

“  Bucky?” Donna’s voice was soft as she peered around the door.

“  Go away.”

Instead she came closer, sitting next to him. She gently put a hand on his new arm, unafraid of what he could do to her if he wanted. Then she moved it to his back, gently stroking up and down. He tried to shrug away, but she moved to pull him to her. Giving in to his grief, Bucky let out a choked sob and fell into her arms.


	2. Chapter 2

They spent several days hanging in the time vortex while Bucky dealt with the first, fresh onslaught of grief. The TARDIS made him up a new bedroom, reassuring him with a framed photograph of Steve on the bedside table that there were no hard feelings over the damage. He spent several days - or what felt like several days; it was hard to tell on the TARDIS - holed up in the new room, teetering on the edge of a black hole of despair.

Steve was gone. Steve who had always been his compass, his guide, his north star. Steve who had been the love of his life since he was too young to understand what love really meant. Gentle, sweet Steve with his deep blue eyes and his artist's dexterous fingers and the soft wheeze of his breath that lulled Bucky to sleep at night, because the sound of it meant Steve was still alive.

That sound that Bucky would never hear again, because Steve was gone.

He spent those several days lying on his bed, clutching a pillow, eating when Donna brought him food and made him eat, and otherwise just lying there. He cried a little bit, but mostly he just stared. Sometimes he slept. When he woke up, he still felt hollowed out inside, so he just kept lying there, hour after hour, with memories of Steve running through his mind.

And then, one time, he woke up feeling... awake.

It wasn't better. He wasn't sure anything would ever make it better. But he felt like if he stood up and took a shower and put on fresh clothes, maybe the world wouldn't crash and burn while he was doing it. So he tried. He stood up, shucking his fusty clothes and padding into the bathroom. The shower went a long way toward making him feel human again, and when he stepped out, there was a warm towel on the countertop. “Thanks, Doll,” he managed, his voice a bit rusty, and the light went first pink, and then a soft bluish-gray. He took that as the TARDIS's offered sympathy, and he paused to gently stroke the wall with his metal hand before stepping out into the hallway.

When he came out into the control room, the Doctor was standing at the console, examining a display. Donna was nowhere in sight. Bucky cleared his throat, and the Doctor looked up. “Ah, back among us,” he said simply. “Well, then. We need to take a quick little trip for refueling. Shouldn't take long. Nip over to Cardiff, spend a couple hours, then nip on off again, bob's your uncle. Sound all right?”

“You're in charge of this flying contraption,” Bucky replied. “I'm just along for the ride.”

The Doctor’s expression softened. “It never gets easier, you know, losing someone you care about.”

“Have you lost many people?”

“More than you think,” the Doctor said. There was a sadness in his eyes that made him look far older. 

“Can’t be that many. You’re what? Thirty?”

“He’s 906,” Donna said, breezing into the control room. “And never lets you forget it. How are you, Bucky?”

“Doin’ better, thanks, darlin’.”

“So where are we off to?” she asked, all business.

“Cardiff, the Doc says. Something about refueling.”

“Oh! Does this mean I get to meet Jack?” Donna asked, eyes sparkling.

“Jack?” Bucky asked.

The Doctor frowned. “Captain Jack Harkness. He’s in charge of Torchwood. They keep an eye on the rift, among other things. I’m hoping we land during a time when he’s not there.”

“What’s with the look? If he’s a good guy, shouldn’t you be happy to see him?”

“Jack’s a notorious flirt,” Donna said. “Or so I’ve heard. The Doctor’s never let me meet him.”

Bucky deliberately put on his best, most cocky smirk - the one that had never failed to make Steve a little weak in the knees. “Well, hell, Doll, if all you wanted was flirting, I got you covered there.” He slung an arm around her shoulders. “I got liberty comin' up. What do you say me and you take in some sights, maybe catch a flicker or somethin'?”

Donna cackled at him, blushing bright red and gently shoving him away. “You!” she exclaimed, reaching up and ruffling his hair. “If I thought for a moment.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean, Doll?”

“I mean, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” Donna said, grinning at him, “that I've seen those newsreels of you and your pretty Captain, and I'm as capable as the next woman of reading between the lines. You'd turn my head if I thought for a second you'd be at all interested in me, but I bloody well know better.”

Bucky felt his breath come short. Was it that obvious? Jesus, did everybody know? He fell into the jump seat, staring at her, unable to form the words to ask her just how much danger he was going to be in.

She felt her brows narrow when his face paled; when he staggered into the jump seat, she could have kicked herself. He'd only just come out of his bedroom, for the love of everything! She bit her lip. “I'm sorry, Bucky,” she said. “I shouldn't tease.”

“How...” He swallowed hard. “Does... does everybody know?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“About me an' Steve. Does everybody know? Is that… is it in the history books and the newsreels?”

She gaped at him for a moment before realizing that she'd inadvertently stumbled on a truth. “Oh, God,” she murmured. “You really  _were_ ? Bucky, I was joking - I'd no idea, honestly!”

“We were,” he said softly. “Seems like forever and….”

“History knows nothing,” the Doctor said. “They all think Peggy Carter was the great love of Steve Rogers’s life.”

Bucky snorted. “Peggy was a great dame, real looker, but Steve wouldn’t have given her the time of day. Not like that, anyway - not in a romantic way.”

“Can you forgive me?” Donna asked.

“For what? You were just sayin’ what you saw. You didn’t know. Gotta remember, things were different back then. Two guys livin’ together were just confirmed bachelors. ‘Course I played the ladies’ man to keep the heat off us, but me an’ Steve? Yeah, I… we…it was what you think.”

“You loved him,” Donna said.

The words hung there in the relative silence of the control room. 

“Well, enough of that, we’re about to land in Cardiff. I do hope Jack isn’t there,” the Doctor said, springing into action around the center console.

Donna said nothing, but found herself rather hoping that he was. Not only for the sake of her own curiosity, but because, if the stories she'd heard about him were true, Jack Harkness might be just what Bucky Barnes needed. She hooked an arm in Bucky's, dragging him off the jump seat. “Come along,” she said. “We need to put you into more appropriate clothing. Won't do for you to be wandering about Cardiff looking like something off a ration card.”

Bucky looked down at his trousers and red button-up shirt. “What's wrong with my clothes?”

“Nothing, if you don't mind looking like my Grandad,” Donna replied.

“Oi!” the Doctor called out as they left the control room. “Your Grandad's brilliant!”

“Yeah, but he hasn't got any bloody fashion sense!” Donna called back, steering Bucky up the hall toward the wardrobe. Once there, she began digging through racks and stacks of shirts, pants, and even shoes, muttering the whole time about skinny blokes with ridiculous hair. She eventually pitched a pair of denim jeans at him, followed by a white undershirt with some kind of logo printed on it. “Put those on,” she said. “And that button-up over top, but leave it unbuttoned.”

He looked skeptical, but obeyed, moving behind one of the racks to change clothes while she dug around in a shoe closet. The boots she presented him with were brown, similar to his Army boots but made of a thicker, sturdier leather. They felt good on his feet, but the rest of the outfit...

He tugged at the waistband of the pants, trying to lift it up to his actual waist; Donna smacked at his hands, tugging it back down to rest on his hips. Then he tried to button up his shirt and tuck it in; she smacked at him again, only allowing him to tuck in the undershirt - which she called a tee shirt - if he rolled up the button-up's sleeves to just below his elbows. He glared at his reflection. “I look like a slob.”

“You look like a man from this century,” she retorted, reaching up to ruffle at his hair. Then she stood back, looking him up and down. “Yes,” she said. “Very nice.”

Grumbling under his breath, Bucky followed her back to the control room, where the Doctor was just tugging on his overcoat. He raised his head and took in Bucky's new look, grinning broadly. “She's got you sorted, then,” he said. “Come on, don't have all day. Well, I suppose we do. Time travelers and all. Still, shops'll be closing. I do love a good shop day, don't you?”

The Doctor opened the door of the TARDIS just a bit and snuck a look out. He then stepped back and sung it wide, gesturing for Donna to go first. She grinned and gave him a mock curtsey, stepping out into the brisk Cardiff air. Bucky and the Doctor were not far behind her.

“Oh, bit nippy out here. Wonder if I should pop back in and grab a cardigan?”

“You can buy one in a shop,” the Doctor said, walking briskly away from the TARDIS.

Donna rubbed her hands over her arms. Then she glanced over to Bucky who was looking all around, taking in the sights. 

“Close your gob, you’ll catch flies that way,” she teased.

Bucky shut his mouth and ducked his head, flushing. “It’s just…so much metal. We could have built so many tanks and weapons with all of this.”

Anything Donna might have said was interrupted by a loud voice shouting the Doctor’s name. The Doctor groaned and shook his head.

“That must be Jack,” Donna said, nodding to the figure.

She watched as Bucky looked at Jack, taking in his flowing overcoat and huge grin.

“Doctor!” Jack said, panting as he came to a stop in front of the trio. “Glad to catch you. You must be Donna,” he said, turning to her and smiling.

Donna suppressed a giggle and held out a hand. Instead of shaking it, Jack kissed the back of it. Then he turned to Bucky.

“Fuck me, you’re….”

“Jack, no,” the Doctor tried to interrupt.

But Bucky was staring, his mouth slightly open. “Jack? Jesus Christ, the Doc said Jack Harkness, but I just figured it was another guy with the same name!” The two men stepped toward each other, engaging in a vigorous back-slapping hug. “How the hell did  _you_ get here?” Bucky asked.

“It's a long story that involves an interstellar manhunt, at least two giant tentacle creatures, and a Chula hospital ship full of medical nanogenes,” Jack replied. “I'm _much_ more interested in hearing how _you_ got caught up with these two.”

Bucky smirked. “It's a long story that involves HYDRA bases, Captain America, and a fall off a speeding train through the Alps.” He gestured with his metal arm. “And a trip to a hospital where all the nurses are cats.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. “You took him to New New York?”

“It's the most reliable medical care in the year five billion,” the Doctor replied, grinning. “If you don't have eye stalks, that is.”

“That's a nice model, though,” Jack said, taking Bucky's left hand and examining the prosthesis. “Did you get the optional mounted laser wrist cannon?”

“And the sonic fingers,” Bucky replied.

Jack leered at him. “Is that as dirty as it sounds?”

Bucky leered back. “Anytime you wanna find out, fella.”

Donna shook her head and stepped between the two men. “As much as I enjoy watching you two pretty boys get your flirt on, can one of you please tell me how you know each other?”

“I was hanging around Europe in ’43,” Jack began. “Had been in London a couple of years before; the Doctor will remember that.”

“Far too well,” the Doctor sighed.

“I was chasing down another criminal for the Time Agency and I ran across none other than this guy here. He and his battalion were slogging through the wilds of France.”

Bucky grinned. “Jack was a handy fella to have around. We were working with some Free French and he helped us ferret out some rogue Nazi agents. And he can really hold his liquor.”

“How is Dernier, anyway?” Jack asked.

“You and the frog?” Bucky laughed. “Seriously?”

“I’m sure you could do this all day long, but is there a reason you came to find me, Jack?” the Doctor interjected.

“Doctor,” Jack replied, placing a hand over his heart. “I will _always_ come running when I hear the TARDIS. You should know that.” When the Doctor continued to look unimpressed, Jack laughed. “No? Oh, well. Actually, I just wanted to find out what was going on. You know trouble follows you everywhere you go, and it's been suspiciously quiet around here lately.”

“That's a bit like saying _nothing could go wrong_ , isn't it?” Donna commented.

“Hopefully not,” Jack replied. “I did say it was suspicious, and I also noted the sudden and unexpected presence of the Oncoming Storm over there. Plus, it's never a dull day when Bucky Barnes is around. Talk about somebody that attracts trouble.”

“Hey, I had nothin' to do with that,” Bucky protested. “I'm not the one that brought those girls to camp.”

“I'm not the one who thought they were girls,” Jack replied, grinning broadly. 

Bucky aimed a cuff at Jack's ear with his right hand. “You're an asshole.” Jack dodged easily, laughing. “You deserve it,” he replied. He slung an arm over Bucky's shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “It's almost lunchtime. Let me buy everyone lunch and you can all fill me in on everything I've missed while I've been cooling my heels in Cardiff.”

Donna took a second and watched the two men walk off. The Doctor glared at her.

“What? Just appreciating the scenery,” she said, before following them.

She nearly bumped into them a moment later. The laughing had stopped and Jack had a hand to his ear, where an earpiece sat. He was muttering to someone. Bucky was standing to the side, puzzled. He was probably trying to figure out the tech.

“Okay, we’ll be there in a few, Tosh,” Jack said. “Sorry, but duty calls. Rift activity. Raincheck?”

“Anything we can do to help?” Bucky asked.

Jack looked back at the Doctor, as if he was trying to suss out whether or not to say yes. The Doctor just stood there, expression as blank as Donna had ever seen it.

“Why not?” he said finally. “Ianto’s not going to know what to make of you, Bucky. Should be interesting. Just remember to watch out for Myfanwy.”

“What’s a Myfanwy?” Donna asked, following Jack as he turned to go in a different direction.

Jack just grinned.

***

“Jesus!” Bucky shouted as he fell backward in surprise. “Who keeps a fuckin' _pterodactyl_ in an office? You're a menace, Harkness!”

“Actually, she's a pteranodon,” a tall, gentle young man corrected him. “And she's very friendly. She's never actually attacked anyone. Well.” He paused, grinning. “Not anyone we didn't want attacked, anyway.” He offered a hand. “Ianto Jones.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky replied, shaking Ianto's hand. “Hell of a place you got here.”

“Thank you,” Ianto replied. “We like it rather a lot.”

“I can imagine.” He looked around as the Doctor and Donna moved off to Jack's side, where he stood in front of a bank of computers beside a slight Japanese woman. “So, uh. At the risk of sounding completely stupid, can I ask what's goin' on?”

Ianto smiled. “Tosh - that's Toshiko Sato, who's our computer expert - has gotten some really odd readings off the Rift. They're trying to work out what's going on. It's possible that something may be coming through; if it is, we need to be prepared.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “What's a Rift?”

“Ah. From the beginning, then,” Ianto said. “The Rift is basically a rupture in space-time that runs right through Cardiff. We're sitting on it. You can't see it,” he added as Bucky looked around in alarm. “It's just sort of _there_. It gives off energy, and sometimes things go through. In both directions. When people disappear, there isn't much we can do about that; on the other hand, when something comes out, it generally falls to us to contain it, stop it, or send it back.”

“Gotcha,” Bucky said. He glanced down at his new hand. “Guess it's lucky I've got this handy new laser cannon in my arm. Sounds like something that might come in useful.”

“Oh, indeed,” Ianto replied. “Very useful.”

At that moment, an alarm went off somewhere. Bucky tensed, ready for action, while Jack, Donna, and the Doctor turned together toward the door. “Right!” the doctor shouted. “Bucky-boy, it's time for action!”

“I'm right behind you, Doc!” Bucky called out, meeting him at the elevator. “What's the situation?”

“We don't know,” Jack replied. “But there's something coming through, right above us, and whatever it is... it's big.”

Bucky followed as they all gathered on the moving square of concrete. Then he tried not to stumble as it began to slide up into the ceiling. He grabbed Donna as she bumped into him.

“Watch it; wouldn’t want to mess that pretty face up.”

“Flatterer,” she mumbled, grinning slightly.

They came up and into the square where they’d been before. The Doctor had a tiny sonic device - he referred to it as a  _ screwdriver _ , of all things - pointed at the sky. It made beeping sounds and its end glowed a faint blue. Jack was talking to someone, probably listening to whatever Tosh was saying through the thing in his ear. Bucky flexed and got the laser cannon ready when he heard it.

There was a rumbling, almost like thunder, coming from above and in front of them. Then, from seemingly out of nowhere, appeared the edge of... something. It came into view and Donna gasped. It was like something out of one of Steve's pulp novels: a spaceship, round and flat and spinning and coming right for them.

“ Now would be a good time to fire that thing,” Jack shouted over the noise of the ship.

Bucky aimed the cannon and fired. The bolt of green light punched a hole in the side of the spaceship and sent it careening off to the left, down the plass and away from the big water fountain tower. They chased it as it skidded to a stop and arranged themselves in a semicircle around the obvious door in the ship's side. There was a long, tense moment before the unmistakable crackle of a speaker sounded in the silent plass. “Don't shoot,” came a thin, scratchy voice. “We're an unarmed science vessel; we surrender. For the love of all that's holy, stop shooting at us.”

Bucky glared at Jack. “Thanks for checkin' to make sure they were dangerous first!”

“Hey,” Jack replied, “just because they  _ say _ they're unarmed, it doesn't mean they're telling the truth.”

This warning was borne out a moment later when the aperture on the side of the vessel opened, and someone on the inside began firing energy bolts. Donna dodged out of the way just in time, barely missing a bolt to the head, and Bucky and Jack returned fire immediately, Jack with his pistol and Bucky with his laser. A scream of pain from within the ship signaled that one or the other of them had hit something.

Bucky ran for the ship's door, crouching to the side of it for a moment and listening carefully for movement inside. When there was none, he straightened and leaned, looking inside. There was one alien there, generally human-looking, but with sickly gray skin. It was missing a head, and from the looks of things, Bucky's laser was the reason for that.

He stepped cautiously through the doorway as Jack stepped up behind him. His nose wrinkled. “Ugh,” he grunted. “It smells worse than a three-day-old latrine in here.”

“You can say that again,” Jack agreed, following Bucky. They started down a hallway, moving cautiously, the Doctor and Donna coming up behind them. 

At a T-junction, Bucky glanced over at Jack. “Which way?”

Jack looked back and forth for a moment before shrugging and glancing back at the Doctor. “Suggestions?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” the Doctor said, pointing his screwdriver at the alien. “Never met anything like this before.”

“Looks like those things out of the X-Files,” Donna said.

Bucky raised an eyebrow in question.

“It’s a…never mind,” she said.

“How about you and Donna go left, Jack and I will take right. Shout if you find anything?” Bucky suggested.

“Sounds like as good a plan as any. Come on,” Donna said, tugging the Doctor up and to the left.

Bucky nodded to Jack and they made their way to the right. The corridor was dimly lit, leading back into the ship.

“Nice shooting,” Jack said. 

“I wasn’t the best shot in my company for nothin’,” Bucky said.

“Can I ask? What has the Doctor told you about what happened?”

Bucky said nothing at first, concentrating on where they were going. After a moment he stopped and turned to Jack.  “He told me Steve was dead.”

Jack nodded. “Lost in the sea ice off Greenland,” he said. “He saved the world, you know.”

Bucky nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. Behind his lids, he saw only the brightness of Steve's smile. “Yeah,” he managed. “I know.” He took a deep breath, clearing his throat, and then turned to face forward again. “Maybe now it's my turn.” 

Before he could move, Jack reached out and laid a hand on Bucky's shoulder. “If you need to talk, later...”

Bucky glanced from the hand up to Jack's face, and quirked a humorless smirk. “A pity-fuck, really? Little sorry-you-lost-your-man dick? Didn't take you for the type, Harkness.”

“I was actually just offering an ear or a shoulder,” Jack replied. “But if you're down for it, Barnes, I'll take you for a ride. I didn't know you were open to the idea; the last time I saw you, you were pretty enthusiastic about those Provençal whores.”

“I was also surrounded by a bunch of assholes with somethin' to prove, and bein' bent was the kind of thing that'd get your head smashed in,” Bucky replied, moving forward again. “But I'm startin' to get the impression nobody here much gives a shit one way or the other.”

“It's not as good as it's gonna get yet,” Jack replied, “but no, most people don't really care. Not any more.”

Bucky nodded. “Good,” he said. “That's... that's good.” He turned his head slightly, listening. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Bucky shook his head. “I'm not sure. Machinery? Something. It's coming from this way. Maybe it's the engine or something.” He moved forward, rounding a bend in the hallway, and was confronted by a doorway. On the other side, he could see a massive structure made of metal, with some kind of giant piston-looking apparatus attached, and...

He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he tried to see. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “Are those... people inside those tubes?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Not people,” Jack said, stepping carefully into the room. “Definitely humanoid. I think we need to call for the Doctor.”

“No, you don’t,” the Doctor said, standing behind Bucky. “Look what you found,” he added, sounding oddly pleased.

He pointed the screwdriver at the liquid-filled capsules. The beings inside looked asleep. There were tubes going in and out of bodies, disappearing into the walls of the ship.

“Remind me of coffins,” Donna remarked. “The other one, the dead one, said they were a science vessel. Were they doing experimenting on these people? Aliens?”

“Probably,” the Doctor said. “They’re alive, but I don’t think it’s safe for us to try and open one of those.”

“So what do we do with them?” Bucky asked.

“Well, now, that depends,” the Doctor replied.

“On what?” Bucky asked.

“On what the rest of this vessel's staff has to say for itself.” He cocked an eyebrow at Donna. “You honestly think a ship this size only has one crew member?”

Donna narrowed her eyes at him. “True or false: this entire ship could fit inside  _one_ of the TARDIS's cargo holds.”

“Well, technically true, I suppose,” the Doctor admitted. “Still, I'm not the only crew member, am I? Got you, yeah? And now a cyborg, as well.”

“Do not call me a cyborg unless you want me rerouting your ventilation system,” Bucky replied, but there was no heat to it; he was busy scanning the upper levels of the room. “I'm going up,” he said. “I can't see a damn thing from down here, and it's making my inner sniper twitchy as hell.”

“Shout if you need anything,” Jack said. “Tosh, are you getting any more life signs on this thing?” He paused. “Yeah, tell Gwen to come on in. Tell her to take a right at the T-junction; she'll know it when she sees it.”

Bucky left them behind, finding an access ladder and making his way up to the catwalk that went around the room. “Wish I had some damn binoculars,” he grumbled to himself, listening carefully for any telltale movement before hoisting himself up onto the grated walkway. In addition to binoculars, he was also wishing he had his rifle, his uniform, and his freaking team. He felt naked and exposed up there in nothing more protective than denim and cotton, and with nobody watching his back. He made his way up the catwalk, his eyes taking in everything he could see down below and his mind trying to make sense of it. He started counting the capsules, one after another after another, and trying to put the pieces together in his brain. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. “Holy shit,” he breathed. And then he scrambled backward, looking for the ladder again.

The Doctor and Donna circled the first capsule, studying it carefully. The humanoid figure floating inside appeared to be totally unconscious, attached to the capsule and thus to the ship by a variety of tubes and wires. “It's like something out of  _The Matrix_ ,” Donna said softly.

Jack, who had gone back down the hallway to wait for Gwen, returned with her just in time to hear that comment. Gwen had to agree, looking up and down at the machinery. “It's creepy,” she managed, her eyes darting here and there.

“I just wonder,” the Doctor mused, examining what appeared to be a control panel. “What might happen if I were to fidget with this?”

“Don't!” Bucky shouted. “Don't touch anything, don't _do_ anything! I know what this is!”

Everyone turned to face him as he came down the ladder at breakneck speed. “What is it, then?” Donna asked.

“It's a colony ship,” Bucky said.

“How do you know that?” the Doctor asked, backing away from the capsules nonetheless.

“I saw… those things,” he said, pointing at the capsule. “Hundreds, maybe thousands, all the way up this room, stacked up like fucking crates.” He jumped down the last few rungs and went over to where Jack was standing.

“Doesn’t mean they’re here to colonize Earth,” Jack said.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asked.

“They came through the Rift, yeah? They could have been heading to any number of places when they got caught in its pull,” Gwen said. 

“Then we need to find a way to put them back through,” Bucky said. 

“Gwen and I are going to check the rest of the ship,” Jack said. “The Doctor is right; there may be other crew members still alive. If there are maybe we can question them and find out what’s really going on.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “But if we find out they're tryin' to take over the Earth, I'm blowin' this bitch to Kingdom Come.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said. “I say we split up again. You go with the Doctor and Donna; that way, they have someone with them who's got something more substantial than a screwdriver. Gwen and I'll go the other way, and we'll see if we can find anyone.”

Gwen offered them the communicator she'd been wearing in her ear. “Here,” she said. “We can use this to stay in touch.”

Donna took it, putting it into her own ear, and nodded. “Good idea.” She glanced over at the Doctor, then at Bucky. “Ready?”

Bucky nodded, his jaw tight and his metal hand clenched into a fist. “Ready.”

“Right, then!” the Doctor said. “Allons-y!”

***

By Bucky's reckoning, they were about halfway around the ship when they finally found more of the gangly gray aliens. This group appeared to be unarmed; they were doing repairs to the hole Bucky's laser had blown into the side of the ship. They found them by accident: when he, the Doctor, and Donna rounded a corner, they nearly stumbled over the little group of workers. Bucky's hand came up immediately, a soft electrical whine filling the air as his laser powered up. “Nobody moves,” he said, “or I start blowin' heads off.”

The aliens looked at each other before looking at Bucky. One of the skinnier ones spoke.

“We just wish to finish our repairs.”

“Not before you answer some questions,” Bucky said.

“What is the purpose of this ship?” the Doctor asked.

“It is a colony ship,” the alien replied.

Bucky moved a little closer but the Doctor’s hand came up to hold him back. Donna was close behind, ready to yell at the aliens if need be.

“Where are you going?” the Doctor asked.

“To one of our colony worlds. We were pulled off course by some kind of force that we could not identify. Our sensors could only tell us it contained massive amounts of energy.”

"Then why’d the other guy start shooting at us?” Bucky asked. 

The skinny one looked alarmed. Maybe. It was hard to tell. Then he - she? it? - turned to confer with the others.

“We were not aware that you were being attacked. Our only goal is to repair the ship. Our people are dying. Those who travel in our hold are some of the last surviving members of our race.”

Bucky and Donna exchanged glances. Hers clearly said  _I'm not buying this, are you?_ And his clearly replied,  _Not a chance._ The Doctor, on the other hand, was chatting away with the aliens, examining the damage from the inside and discussing whether or not he could help with the repairs. Finally, with a slightly disgusted sigh, Donna said, “Oi! Spaceman!”

The Doctor turned toward her, raising an eyebrow. When he did, one of the aliens reached out and grabbed him by the arm, raising some kind of tool or weapon to his neck. “Back away!” it shouted. “Back away or I will cut off his head!”

“Oh, come on, now,” the Doctor said. “You really don't want to do that.”

The alien gave a high-pitched sound similar to a giggle. “Perhaps! Perhaps not! But now I have you, and your friends will go immediately or I will kill you!”

“That ain't gonna happen,” Bucky said calmly.

“I _will_ kill him!” the alien screeched.

“Doc,” Bucky said. “Hit the floor.”

“I'd really rather you didn't do that,” the Doctor said. “I find that these things can almost always be settled non-violently.”

“Sure,” Bucky said. “And we can all sit down and talk it out nice-like after I'm done with this. _Hit the floor_.” 

With a sigh, the Doctor let his legs go limp. The instant his head was clear, the alien who'd been holding him was on the floor, dead. The Doctor scrambled to Bucky's side, and Bucky aimed his metal arm at the other aliens. “Now,” the young soldier said, “we're back to where we were a minute ago, when I said what I did about people movin' and me blowin' heads off. Clear?”

“Clear,” they all said.

“Good. Now how ‘bout you let me and my friends have a talk and no one else dies,” Bucky said.

The aliens all nodded. Bucky turned a little to find Donna fussing at the Doctor. 

“Don’t know why you insist on trying to be friendly with every alien we meet,” she said.

“It’s what I do, Donna,” the Doctor sighed.

“Well, do it better next time. You die, who’s going to pilot the bloody TARDIS? C3-PO over there?” She nodded to Bucky.

“I’d be happy to try, sweetheart.”

“The TARDIS can only be piloted by me,” the Doctor said.

“Dunno, Doc. She seems kinda sweet on me,” Bucky smirked, very much enjoying the  _ Hey! _ that he got from the Doctor in return . “Now, how we gonna deal with these guys?”

“We could fix their ship, let them pilot it back through the Rift,” Donna suggested.

“Not sure I buy that's what they're really doin', after that little move,” Bucky said. He gestured at Donna's ear. “Maybe you oughta check in with Jack and Gwen, see how they're doin'. Might be they found something we haven't.”

Nodding, Donna reached up to press the button on the communicator. “Jack?”

“ _Here, Donna; what do you have?”_

“We've found a group of workmen repairing the hole; one of them tried to take the Doctor hostage, but the others insist that they're here by accident.”

There was a moment of silence before Jack spoke again.  _“I'm not sure I believe that,”_ he said finally.  _“I've found their weapons storage.”_

Donna relayed the message, and the Doctor got a very grim look on his face. “So,” he said softly, studying the aliens. “A colony ship headed to a colony planet? Or a colony ship looking for a planet to conquer?”

The aliens exchanged glances among themselves. “We don't know anything about that,” one of them said weakly.

“Try again,” Bucky growled, his laser cannon whining softly.

“Our race truly is dying, as is our planet,” another one said. “We were not pulled into this place. Our scouts noticed the energy signature of whatever brought us here. We only wished to check it out as a possible fuel source.”

“And now?” Bucky asked.

“We have decided,” another one said. “This planet is not suitable for colonization.”

“Good choice,” the Doctor said in a low growl. “We will help you repair your ship. Then you will return through the Rift and find an uninhabited planet to settle on. And tell your people that this planet, this Earth, is protected. Show them my face and tell them that I am the Oncoming Storm. I am the Doctor, and they don’t want to mess with me.”

The aliens all nodded. Bucky slowly lowered his arm, but didn’t retract the cannon. 

“No funny business. I’m staying here, my friend Donna here is going to escort some of you to our friend, Jack so you can get this tin can flyin’ again.  _ Capisce _ ?”

“Don't... don't do that,” the Doctor said in an undertone when the aliens all looked confused. “If you speak a foreign language, it disrupts the TARDIS's language circuits.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You're tellin' me tech that can fly through space and time and get me a new arm with a laser gun inside of it gets confused by me speakin' Italian?”

The Doctor looked a bit chagrined. “Essentially, yes.”

Bucky gave him a look of absolute disgust. “I'm gettin' less impressed by you all the time.”

“Oh, good,” Donna said. “It only bolsters his ego when people get all ga-ga about things.”

Bucky snorted, then turned and pointed at the aliens. “You gonna get to work, or what?”

“Yes, yes, of course” they clamored, hurrying back to their jobs. 

Donna leaned forward. “How many more of you are there? That are awake, I mean.”

“One other crew,” one of the aliens said. “Five individuals.”

Donna relayed this information to Jack, who radioed back a few minutes later with word that he had encountered that crew, on what appeared to be the ship's bridge. “They confirm what you were told about the scouts,” he said. “And they're pretty confident that they don't want to have to fight for a planet. They're willing to pilot the ship back through the rift again.”

“You let 'em know,” Bucky said, “that if they try anything funny, I'll blow 'em right out of the sky again. And this time I'll come through this ship like it was a HYDRA base. Make sure they understand that.”

Jack confirmed that the aliens did indeed understand that Bucky was about two steps away from genocide and having a really rough day. Donna bit her lip, her eyes sparkling, as Bucky added a snarl to the end of that, just for punctuation.

With Bucky watching over them, the aliens had the ship fixed in no time at all. It was night by the time they lifted off, a little wobbly at first, before zipping back through the rift.

“So, tell me, how comes there’s nobody standin' around, boggling at the big ugly spaceship that crashed into their town?” Bucky asked.

“Ah, the wonders of the human mind,” the Doctor said. “It’s amazing what you lot will believe if given the right motivation.”

“He’s saying they lie, use other alien tech and basically bamboozle everyone,” Donna said. 

Jack was saying goodbye to Gwen a few feet away. As she walked off, he came back over, apologetic grin on his face.

“Seems we missed lunch, so how about dinner?”

“Thanks, no. I’m going to go have a cuppa on the TARDIS and then a nice long bath. Fighting off an alien invasion is hard work,” Donna said.

“I need to make sure the old girl is fueled up,” the Doctor said. “But you can feel free to go, Bucky. We won’t leave until morning.”

“How about it, Barnes? One last meal for old times’ sake?” Jack asked.

“Why not?” Bucky said with a grin. “Let’s see what Cardiff can offer a boy from Brooklyn.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dinner was fresh seafood, which Bucky hadn't had in... he honestly couldn't remember when. At least since leaving New York; there was nowhere to get fresh fish in the landlocked parts of Europe where the Commandos had gone, and even when there had been fishing, there was no time to stop and cast out a line. They had survived on K-rations and whatever they could hunt, which wasn't much. Here, though, in the future, with rationing a forgotten thing and everyone seeming to have plenty of everything, Bucky found himself presented with more choice than he could ever imagine.

He wasn't even sure what a monkfish even  _was_ , but the waiter assured him that whatever it was, it had been in the water that morning, so he decided to give it a shot. Jack went with halibut and they both spent a few minutes making the required groaner-puns before settling down to talk quietly over their wine glasses. Jack said, “Ordinarily, this is where I'd go in for small talk and ask about your job, but that's really kind of silly at this point, so let's skip the segues. Bucky, how the  _hell_ did you end up tied up with the Doctor and Donna?”

Bucky sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Jack, I gotta tell ya, man. I'm not sure.” He shook his head. “So, the last time I saw you, I was with the 107 th in Italy, and we were fightin' the Nazis, doin' what we did. But then we got ambushed, and about half the division got captured. They marched us north into Austria to this base, it was half factory and half horror shop. They had us buildin' on tanks in the daytime and then at night...” He paused, swallowing hard, and took a sip of wine for fortification. “They were doin' experiments.”

Jack's eyes widened. “It was a HYDRA base.”

Bucky nodded. “We didn't know it, of course; hell, we hadn't even  _heard_ of HYDRA. But that's what they were. It was run by this little shrimpy fucker called Zola.”

“I've heard the name.”

“I ain't surprised.” Bucky sat back, taking another sip of his wine. “We'd been there... I dunno how long. You lose track of the days, you know? Everything's the same, and you never see the sun, and after awhile, it's just... you just do what you gotta do to keep breathin'. And every so often they'd come in and they'd take some guys, and whoever they took, they didn't come back.”

“Jesus,” Jack murmured.

“Yeah.” Bucky cleared his throat. “And then one day it was my turn.” He paused as the waiter brought their appetizers, then continued, telling the story of how Steve, suddenly twice the man he'd been, parachuted into that base all by himself and led them out, rescuing Bucky from Zola's torture chamber along the way before marching every one of them right back to Italy. And then he laughed. “And he stands there in front of Colonel Phillips, with a hundred-plus rescued guys behind him, and he says how he's gonna turn himself over for disciplinary action. _Disciplinary action_ , he says, with all of us standin' there, half of us carryin' HYDRA weapons and a couple of guys drivin' a fuckin' HYDRA tank.”

Jack laughed. “There’s still footage of your Steve floating around, they bring it out on the big anniversaries. You know Howard Stark never stopped looking for him?”

“No foolin’? Steve said something ‘bout how Stark was involved in getting him to be the way he was.”

“So what happened after? You mentioned something about the Alps.”

Bucky swirled the wine in his glass. “While Steve was getting us out of the base, Zola escaped. We found out he was on a train. We, I mean the Commandos, went after the bastard. We were ambushed. There was this guy carrying some huge guns, knocked me right out the train, with the door.”

“There was some speculation that a lot of HYDRA tech wasn’t entirely Earth based.”

“Would make sense. Ain’t seen nothin’ like those guns til I met up with the Doc. So there I was hangin’ there, holding on for dear life. Steve must have gotten the sucker, cause next thing I know he’s out of the door, shoutin’ my name. I tried to reach for him, he was tryin’ to reach for me….”

“Bucky,” Jack said softly, horrified.

“Next thing I remember is lying on the snow, looking at my arm, my real arm, sittin’ a few feet from my head. I must have been hallucinating, cause I thought Steve had come to get me. It was Donna and the Doc.” He shook his head, staring down into his glass. “They took me to a hospital, got me fixed up real good.” He stopped again, clearing his throat. “And yesterday Donna told me... how they never stopped lookin'. I just... I just can't...” He shook his head, staring down at his plate.

Jack reached across the table, laying a hand on Bucky's. “I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I didn't realize it was so recent. You seemed like you were doing okay, and I thought you'd had time to deal.”

Bucky took a deep breath, giving Jack a slight, watery laugh. “Yeah, no. That was...” He paused, thinking. “Three days ago? Yeah.” He nodded. “Three days ago, Jack. Three days ago I was standin' next to him on a train, and now, all of a sudden, he's been dead for sixty years.” He took another breath. It shuddered in his chest. “How do I wrap my head around that? I can't even... God, I was wearin' his undershirt. It still smells like him.”

Jack squeezed his hand. “You don't, really,” he admitted. “It's hard, losing people you care about like that. I've lost more than my fair share, myself. And when there's nothing to do but pick up the pieces and soldier on...” He shrugged slightly. “You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It's all you can do.”

They stilled when their meals arrived; the waiter, with the innate good sense he was born with, did not linger, but promised to check back with them. They paused in their conversation to taste their food. Bucky had to admit that whatever monkfish was, it was delicious; Jack's halibut was perfect as well, and they shared bits of their meal as they decimated everything on their plates. When they were done, the waiter came back by to carry off the empty dishes and to offer pudding, but they declined. Jack paid the check over Bucky's protests, and then they left the restaurant, stepping out into the quiet, balmy Cardiff evening.

“You want me to walk you back to the TARDIS?” Jack asked.

Bucky looked around, breathing in the night air. It was nice to smell the salt of the water rather than the stench of war. “Doc said they weren’t leavin’ til morning. I feel like walking.”

“I can tell you all about the buildings here, or more about Torchwood.”

“Sure, tell me about those tentacle creatures, they sound interesting,” Bucky said.

Jack laughed and launched into a story as they walked down the plass. Bucky, while relaxed in Jack’s company, was still alert to his surroundings. Sniper training never went away. Soon the scenery melted from shops and office buildings into apartment buildings. He laughed at the end of Jack’s story, noticing they’d stopped.

“This is me, I’m at the top,” Jack nodded, indicating the building they were standing in front of. “Want to come up?”

“You don’t think I know a line when I hear one?” Bucky said, smirking.

“The clichéd ones are sometimes the best. I’ve got a thirty year old bottle of scotch that’s calling your name, Barnes.”

“I can hear it from here,” Bucky said. “It sounds like it's saying  _ come up and stay the night _ .” He paused, studying Jack's face.

Jack reached out, his fingertips brushing against Bucky's cheek. “It doesn't have to mean anything,” he said softly. “Sometimes it's worth it just to have someone warm and solid to hold onto.”

Bucky's eyes fell closed, and he could almost imagine, for just a second, that the hand on his face was Steve's. “It doesn't seem fair,” he managed to say, forcing his eyes to open again.

“To who?” Jack asked. “It's perfectly fair to me if I know what I'm getting into.”

“To him,” Bucky admitted. “It's only been a few days, and...”

“And do you think he'd want you to be alone?” Jack murmured. “Do you think he'd want you to spend the rest of your life as a monk, to never take comfort in someone else, just because it can't be him that gives you that comfort?” He stroked his thumb across Bucky's cheekbone. “Close your eyes,” he breathed.

Bucky obeyed, a tremor going through his body, and Jack leaned forward, pressing his lips gently against Bucky's. “Let me give you what comfort I can,” Jack whispered.

Bucky swallowed hard, his tongue flickering out to lick his lips. And then he nodded. Jack weaved his fingers between Bucky's and led the soldier into the building and upstairs to his apartment.

***

Donna was definitely not spying as she watched Jack walk Bucky to the TARDIS the next morning. And if she saw them kiss goodbye, who was she going to tell? She preened a little, holding a cup of coffee for him as she waited by the door. "So, how was dinner?” she asked as he walked in.

“Great, we went to a little place on the waterfront. I recommend the monkfish,” Bucky said, taking the cup and sipping. “Donna, you are a goddess among women. This is so much better than any sludge Dugan ever cooked up.”

“Glad someone around here appreciates my efforts,” she said, glaring at the Doctor.

“Oh, you’re back,” the Doctor said. “Off we go then, let’s see what’s out there.”

The TARDIS made the familar whoosh-whoosh sound and Donna wondered briefly if it was supposed to do that. “Can I make you something else, Bucky? Have you eaten yet?”

“I’ll take whatever you got, doll, long as you supply me with more of this joe.”

“Done and done,” she said, leading him back to the kitchens. She watched as he sat at the table, looking more relaxed and a little more at peace. “So what kept you out?” she asked casually.

“Jack and I had a lot to drink, so I stayed at his place,” Bucky answered.

“Mmm- _ hmm _ ,” Donna said, her eyes sparkling as she pulled out eggs and bacon. “Stayed, or  _ stayed _ ?”

Bucky sighed heavily. “We're really gonna do this?” Off her return look, he said, “ _ Stayed _ , okay? Yes, we slept together. No, we're not... dating or whatever. It was a one-time thing.”

“I have a feeling Jack is a show that bears up under repeated viewings,” Donna offered.

“I have a feeling Jack's probably not all that interested in a repeated viewing of somebody that called him Steve at an inopportune moment,” Bucky replied, his tone turning slightly chilly.

Donna was silent for a moment as she focused on the fry-up, but when she turned away from the stove with two plates in her hands, she had the look on her face of a woman with Something To Say. “I've never lost someone I really, deeply loved the way you have,” she said simply, handing Bucky a plate and a fork and sitting down with her own. “But I  _ have _ lost. And I know people. And I know you weren't meant to be alone and miserable. I've only known you for a few days, Bucky Barnes, but you're like that man out there in the control room: you need someone to stand over you and keep an eye on you and make certain you don't go overboard and make mistakes. Someone to pull you back from the edge when you're about to go over.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, “but Jack ain't gonna be that. Not for me.” He took a deep breath. “He's got somebody, anyway. He never said, straight out, but you can always tell.”

Donna nodded. That, at least, was true. She said, “Well, you never know. We  _ are _ time travelers.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, well, maybe there's somebody for me in the year five billion. I just know for sure it ain't Jack, so you can put that outta your pretty little matchmakin' head. Okay?”

Donna made a face at him. “So long as you never,  _ ever _ use any variant of the phrase 'pretty little head' on me again. Because I promise you, try it and I'll make you wish you hadn't.”

“Fair enough.” Bucky grinned, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth. “Reckon where we're headed this time?”

“There's honestly no telling,” Donna replied. “We went to Pompeii once. On Volcano Day, because he's a bloody idiot who can't steer. One time we rescued an entire race of telepaths who'd been enslaved. Oh, and once, we went to a planet that was being terraformed by clones. They'd been having a generations-long war that had only lasted a few weeks, but they didn't realize it because they were all born fully grown. And just recently we went to a library that was full of man-eating bits of dust.”

Bucky stared at her for a second. “I'd say you're havin' me on, but you really can't make this shit up, can you?”

“Not a chance, Bucky-boy,” she replied. “Eat up. Maybe today's the day we get to see the underside of a supernova.”

Just as Bucky was finishing up, the Doctor stuck his head around the door. “Hurry up you two, I just a call from the vice-minister of Proxima Centauri. He’s getting married and asked me to be the best man. Allons-y!”

“What could go wrong at a wedding?” Bucky asked.

“Oh, love, you’ll learn to never ask that while traveling with the Doctor,” Donna sighed, leading him off to the wardrobe again. “I could tell you  _ so _ many stories about mine.” She held up a hand when he gave her a startled look. “It ended up not happening. Long story. I'll tell it another time. Or I may let Himself tell it; 's funnier the way he does it.”

James Barnes in a tux was a sight to see. Bucky, half out of a tux, shooting at the maid of honor who’d tried to kill the groom was even better. After, they visited the universe’s best ice cream planet, only to find it was the summer season and everything melted in five seconds. Then they went to the re-dedication of Pluto as a planet, fought a stray Dalek ship, and met Galileo. Bucky seemed to thrive.

“ If I’d known how much running there’d be, I’d have laid off second breakfast,” he said one afternoon. By his own personal timeline, he reckoned it about six months after he'd been rescued by the Doctor and Donna. They’d just returned to the TARDIS after escaping from a royal palace where the Doctor had accidentally promised to marry the prince and princess of whatever planet they’d landed on. Donna had run far too much today to remember the name.

“ Oh, it’s all running, Bucky. I’ve lost nearly a full stone since I went with the Doctor. Luckily the TARDIS altered all my clothes without me asking.”

“Seriously though,” Bucky said, looking across the control room at the Doctor. “The prince  _ and _ the princess? You've got a pretty high opinion of yourself there.”

“Oi!” the Doctor exclaimed. “None of your cheek. I've never had any complaints before, I assure you.”

Bucky's head fell back as he laughed himself silly. He felt like he'd done little more than laugh and run - sometimes both at the same time - since coming to the TARDIS. And if, sometimes in the very late hours, when the ship was dark and silent, he'd pull that old undershirt out of the null-storage just for a slow breath of Steve's scent, nobody needed to know about that. Nobody needed to know that sometimes he deliberately got lost in the bowels of the ship just to make sure he was far enough away that his howls of anguish wouldn't disturb his new friends. Nobody needed to know that the TARDIS, out of sympathy, had made him a three-dimensional hologram of Steve out of one of the old newsreels, and that sometimes he watched that forty-five second clip over and over and over again because one of his deepest fears was forgetting the sound of Steve's voice. Nobody needed to know those things. As far as everyone else was concerned, Bucky Barnes was doing just fine, moving on, getting over it, and getting on with his life.

“So, hey, Doc,” he said, “where to next?”

“Oh, well,” the Doctor said. “I was actually thinking about taking you to see - ”

But wherever it was, he never got the chance to say. A flash of light filled the control room, and suddenly Jack Harkness was standing there, grinning at them all just a little madly. “Doctor!” he exclaimed. “Finally! That only took about four tries. You've been a hard man to catch up to!”

“Jack, we've talked about that vortex manipulator before,” the Doctor said, flipping his screwdriver in his hand.

“Now's not the time, Doc. Where's Bucky? Bucky!” He spun, facing the young soldier, his eyes gleaming. “I've got news.”

“News about what?” Bucky asked.

“Steve,” Jack said. “They found him.”

***

Bucky felt, for just a moment, as though his world had shattered into shards of glass around him. _ They found him _ . It was his worst nightmare, but at the same time... it was about time. Especially when Jack admitted that the calendar in his personal timeline read 2011. Steve had been buried in that sea ice for sixty-six years; it was about goddamn time somebody found him and brought him home.

Bucky stood up, running a hand through his hair. “Is there gonna be a funeral?” he asked. “Do you know?”

“No,” Jack said, and for a second, Bucky was struck so hard by the injustice of Steve not getting a hero's funeral that he nearly missed the three words that followed. “He's not dead.”

He had to process that for a moment, along with Donna's gasp and the Doctor's expression of consternation. “The hell you mean he's not dead?” Bucky demanded. “How is he not dead? He's been in the ice for sixty-six years!”

“Accidental cryogenic preservation,” Jack replied. “As any good paramedic will tell you, they're not dead until they're warm and dead, and he's not dead!”

“Then... then I could... I could go back,” Bucky murmured, his eyes lighting up. “Jack, I could go back, I could go to him. We could be together again!”

“You could,” Jack replied. “But you've got to get there at the right time. If you're late, he'll be taken up by SHIELD - it's an international, extra-governmental group of mostly no-good thugs - and you'll have a hell of a time getting him away again. He'll get caught up in fighting what he thinks is the good fight, and duty, and honor, and all those things. You know how he is.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said softly. “I know.”

“So I have the coordinates,” Jack said, “but you only get one shot at this.”

“I'll take it.” Bucky looked from him to the Doctor. “Doc,” he said softly. “Will you help me? Please.”

The Doctor looked over at Jack. “You're certain about this?”

Jack nodded firmly. “One hundred percent,” he said.

“All right,” the Doctor said. “Let's go. Allons-y!”

***

“ _All agents, code thirteen,”_ the woman's voice on the loudspeaker called out.  _ “I repeat, all agents, code thirteen! _ ”

He blasted past them, shoving men out of his way, and burst out of the glass doors. The noise of traffic and people, the stench of the city, the bright light of mid-afternoon assaulted his senses, but he ignored them, pushed past all of them, until suddenly he realized that everything was wrong.

Not just the kind of wrong that was a baseball game from four years ago; the kind of wrong that was massive skyscrapers and cars he'd never seen before and bright lights and electronic billboards and  _ where the hell was he?! _

“At ease, soldier!” called a voice from behind him, and he turned to see a large Black man with an eyepatch and a trenchcoat strolling up to him. “Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly.”

“Break  _ what _ ?”

“You've been asleep, Cap,” the man said. “For almost seventy years.”

Steve felt the crushing weight of it - the crushing  _ truth _ of it - fall down upon him. Seventy years. Barely seven  _ days _ since Bucky fell, but at the same time, seventy years. Seventy years, and Bucky would never stand here beside him, staring around at a city that looked nothing like anything he'd ever seen before. Seventy years, and he had thought, when he put the plane down in the water, that he would see Bucky again and everything would be all right but now, now  _ nothing _ was all right, and nothing would ever be all right again.

“You gonna be okay?” the man asked him.

“Yeah,” he said automatically. “Yeah, I just...”

Whatever he had been about to say was cut off by the strangest sound he'd ever heard - something like grinding gears, repetitive and whooshing, and then right in front of him, out of absolutely nowhere, a wooden box suddenly just...  _ appeared _ . It was brilliantly blue, and there was a sign on the front of it, and the glass across the top read “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” and Steve vaguely thought that he might have seen something like it once before, maybe in Europe but he wasn't certain.

And then the door opened, and Steve's breath caught in his chest, because it was Bucky, it was  _ Bucky _ and he was alive, and he was grinning that same grin that he always grinned, and he kind of needed a haircut and somehow he had a metal arm but it was  _ Bucky _ , and he was holding out that metal hand. “Hey, Stevie,” Bucky called out. “Come on. Time's wasting and we got places to go.”

Steve stood stock still for a moment. His eyes went to the Black man in the trench coat, who looked as astonished as Steve felt, and back to Bucky, who was still grinning that same grin. “Bucky?” he managed. “But...”

“Yeah, I know, I fell off the damn train. That's where I got the fancy new arm from. I'll tell you all about it later. Come on, man, we can't stay here all day; the Doc got a call from some guy in the Coralaxi quadrant or some shit, we gotta hustle. You comin' with me, or you stayin' with the one-eyed wonder over there?”

As if there was ever any question. He heard the one-eyed man behind him, shouting something, but he ignored him, and he leapt forward, and Bucky grabbed his hand and pulled him inside, slamming the door behind him.

Steve gaped at the inside of the box. "It's... bigger on the inside," he breathed.

"Ooh, we really  _ are _ trotting out the golden oldies with these two," Donna said. She stepped up and offered her hand. "Welcome to the TARDIS, Captain Rogers."

"Ma'am," he said, taking her hand and giving it a quick shake.

Bucky cringed. "Stevie, we've got to break you of that habit. This is Donna, she's a hell of a gal. That's Jack, he helped me find you. And that skinny thing at the controls is the Doctor. This is his ship."

"Ship? It's just a box," Steve said, staring at all of them. He was still confused, even if he was happy that he was with Bucky.

"Why don't you take him to your room, Bucky? For all that the TARDIS can do it's still going to take a while to get to where we're going. Plus, we have to drop Jack off first," the Doctor offered.

"Sure, Doc, just holler when you need us. And thanks, Jack, for everything," Bucky said.

"Anytime, Barnes," Jack said, tossing off a sloppy salute. "Captain."

Steve automatically responded with an answering salute, still gaping as Bucky pulled him away from the door and further into the anomalous box. “Good grief,” he managed as Bucky led him down a hallway. “How big  _ is _ this thing?”

“No idea,” Bucky replied. “I've only seen... hell, probably not even a quarter of it. The library's fantastic; you're gonna love it. Goes on for actual days. And there's a swimming pool, too - we finally got the squid-thing out of it, so it's usable again.”

“Squid-thing?” Steve asked faintly, his mind latching onto the most recent of the incomprehensible things Bucky was saying.

“Yeah. It wasn't  _ actually _ a squid, but that was the closest thing I could come up with, and I can't pronounce the name of it; I tried. The Doctor made me stop trying because he said it sounded like a really bad swear in Silurian.” He stopped in front of a door that slid open obligingly, and gestured. “After you?”

Steve stepped through the door and stopped in surprise at what he saw. Bucky slipped in behind him, letting the door slide shut, and he watched a bit nervously as Steve looked around in shock. He fidgeted. “I can take them down,” he finally said. “If you want me to. If it... if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Steve shifted, moving close to the nearest wall, and reached up to touch the sketch of his own face that hung there, surrounded by other sketches of himself, as well as what appeared to be reproduced photographs from newspapers and still shots from newsreels. There was even a picture of himself from before the serum - he recognized the background as Camp Lehigh. He turned and looked at Bucky, something like understanding in his eyes. “How long has it been for you?” he asked.

Bucky swallowed hard. “About... about six months, give or take,” he admitted. “It's hard to keep track sometimes, in the TARDIS.” He paused, searching for words. “I thought you were dead,” he finally said. “Donna... she said you crashed a plane into sea ice and they couldn't find you.”

"I had to, Buck. It was heading for New York, thousands of people were going to die."

"I get that, Stevie. It can't have been too long for you, since...."

"A week, roughly. God, Buck, I...." Steve reached out and touched Bucky's cheek.

Bucky leaned into the touch, sighing at the familiar gesture. He went into Steve's arms as he was pulled into a hug. The shoulder of his shirt was feeling a little damp.

"God, Steve, don't cry, we got each other now, right?"

Steve responded by kissing him, hard and fast and dirty. He began pushing Bucky towards the huge bed, tugging his shirt out of his pants, running his large hands over Bucky's chest. Bucky wanted nothing more than to sink into Steve, kiss him and fuck him into next week. But they needed to talk first.

“Wait. Wait. I have to... we need to...” he trailed off, letting Steve's tongue do something obscene to his mouth, their twin moans filling up the space between them. The absolute last thing Bucky wanted to do right now was stop, but he had to - he had to - 

“I have to talk to you,” he managed, pushing back on Steve's shoulders. It physically hurt to peel himself away from Steve when all he'd wanted for the last six months was one more touch, one more kiss, one more breath... but he had to. He had to do this right, because the consequences of doing it wrong didn't bear thinking about. He pushed Steve to take a seat on the end of the bed. “I have to tell you something,” he said. “Before... before anything... just...” He paused, blowing out a frustrated sigh. “I have to tell you something.”

Steve's face went carefully blank, like he knew what was coming, like he was preparing for a blow. Bucky swallowed hard. “I want to show you something, first.” He crossed the room to the null-time storage cabinet and opened the door, reaching into the weirdly blank space and pulling out the undershirt he'd been so carefully storing. “The day I fell,” he said, “I was wearing your undershirt.”

“I know,” Steve said. “I realized it was missing later.”

Bucky turned back to face Steve, let him see the filthy, bloodstained item in his hands. “I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “And I've been keeping this. The TARDIS wanted to clean it, but I wouldn't let her, because it still smells like you. And it was all I had left.”

“Bucky, I - ”

“I slept with Jack,” Bucky blurted, his eyes closing against that horrible blank expression on Steve's face. “I thought you were dead and I needed... and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't hate me, I'll understand if you hate me but please... please...” His voice trailed off and he choked on a sob that he didn't want to let out, his hands clenching in the shirt and hot tears sliding down his face.

There was only the sound of his sobs for a moment. Then he was wrapped up in Steve's arms, being held close to his chest as Steve pressed kisses to the top of his head.  "I could never hate you, Bucky.” He was quiet for a moment. “After you fell... we drank to your memory, me and the guys."

"You can't get drunk," Bucky muttered against Steve's chest.

"Doesn't mean I didn't want to, and I wanted to do... something," Steve sighed. "Afterwards, they left me alone in that bombed-out bar. Peggy came to offer her condolences. I think she wanted more. Buck, I almost... I get why it happened."

Bucky lifted his head off Steve's chest, staring into those familiar blue eyes, the expression on his face that of a man who has unexpectedly found redemption. "You do?"

"I do. Though that guy, really? He seems a bit... obvious," Steve teased.

"Punk," Bucky said, tackling Steve to the bed. 

Steve rolled him over, straddling his waist, his smile bright as the sun. “Jerk,” he replied, taking the filthy undershirt away from him. “Let the TARDIS wash this,” he said, his voice soft and low, a croon in Bucky's ear.

“Y-yeah,” Bucky managed, gasping as Steve's mouth settled on the side of his neck.

“You don't need it any more,” Steve murmured against his pulse. “No more substitutes.”

Bucky whined something in the affirmative, and Steve chuckled against his collarbone, and then for a long time, they didn't need any more words between them - not that words would have sufficed anyway.

***

When they finally rolled out of bed, Bucky introduced Steve to the wonders of his en suite bathroom, which had managed to shift its dimensions while he wasn't looking. The shower stall now boasted two huge rainfall heads, and there were heated towel racks just outside the glass doors at either end and a bench against the back wall. The vanity, which had previously been a single-basin, now had two, and there was a second shaving kit on the cabinet and a second toothbrush in the cup. Bucky gave the wall a gentle pat of thanks as the two of them climbed into the shower stall together.

There, under the warm fall of water, Steve took a long moment to examine Bucky's new metal arm. Bucky gave him a sanitized version of the fall and his rescue, preferring to focus on his experience at the hospital - “Cat people, Steve! All the doctors and nurses were cat people!” - and the new arm's different capabilities.

Anything to keep that look of desolation out of Steve's eyes when his fingers ran along the seam between metal and flesh and he blamed himself for not catching Bucky in time.

“Hey,” Bucky said, pushing Steve down onto the bench and cupping Steve's face in his hands. “Look at me. If you'd caught me, we wouldn't be here right now, would we? And look at where we are! You saved the world, man. You stopped the Red Skull, you stopped HYDRA, and now? Now we're on a damn spaceship, me and you, just a couple boys from Brooklyn flying through the friggen' stars! So I lost my arm, so what? I got a fancy new one that shoots fuckin' lasers! And better than that, Steve - I got  _ you _ . So nothin' else matters. You got me?”

"Til the end of the line," Steve said, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to the seam of flesh and metal.

"You start that up again and we're gonna need another shower," Bucky laughed.

"I don't see the problem," Steve grinned. He tried unsuccessfully to tug Bucky into his lap.

"We need food, I can hear your stomach rumbling. When was the last time you had something?"

"I honestly don't remember."

"C'mon, Donna will whip you up something good. She'll probably want to know everything about everything as it is. She's like the Jewish grandmother we never had. Though I'll deny I ever said that," Bucky said, throwing Steve a meaningful glare.

"Quiet as a mouse."

Bucky snorted. "In your dreams boy-o."

The dimensions of the closet had enlarged just as the bathroom had; all of Bucky's things were now hanging on the left side, and a wide variety of clothing hung on the right side, waiting for Steve. It was as motley in style and design as the Doctor's own wardrobe, and Bucky got a chuckle out of watching Steve's eyes bug out. “Just dig through it and find stuff you like,” Bucky told him. “She'll rearrange things so you get more of the same afterward. But um. Keep in mind that Donna has very definite ideas about what people are and aren't allowed to wear. I was perfectly happy in trousers and button up shirts, you know, casual stuff like we always used to wear? But she complained that I looked like her Grandad and made me change it all.” 

Steve, raising an eyebrow, tugged on a pair of boxer-briefs and then leaned against the doorway, watching Bucky dress. “I see what you mean,” he said, taking in the snugly-fitting lower-waisted jeans, the t-shirt painted with an abstract design, and the solid colored button up that Bucky neither tucked in nor buttoned up. 

Bucky shrugged, looking awkward. “It's really comfortable,” he offered. “And Donna says it looks good.”

Steve turned him around, his hands sliding down Bucky's back to grip his ass warmly. “It looks  _ damn _ good,” he said, tugging Bucky's hips back against his own.

Bucky groaned. “Jesus, Steve,” he panted. “You keep that up and...”

“I know, I know.” Steve chuckled, letting him go, and turned to face his own wardrobe options. “Come help me pick out something to wear.”

When they emerged from their room a bit later, Steve was wearing a pair of loose-fitting black jeans, a plain green t-shirt, and a black leather bomber jacket. When they walked into the control room, Donna looked up from the jump seat and nearly swallowed her tongue. “Bloody hell,” she managed. “Jack, I might need CPR.”

“Not if I need it first,” Jack replied, gaping. “Hel- _ lo _ soldier!”

"No, Jack," Bucky and the Doctor said together.

"Just appreciating the view," Jack said, grinning widely and holding his hands up in a gesture of peace.

Bucky tried not to smirk as Steve swung a possessive arm around his waist. "See, doll, your fashion sense is rubbing off on me," he said to Donna.

"God bless the TARDIS," she said, looking Steve up and down.

Steve shuffled his feet and ducked his head, unused to the attention. Bucky swallowed a laugh and tugged him to the console. "Stevie, this is the Doctor."


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor turned and gave a grin that Bucky knew meant mischief was soon to follow. The Doctor leaned forward and took Steve's hand, shaking it hard enough to rattle teeth.

"Captain Rogers, Steve, this is a pleasure."

"Thank you, Doctor....?"

"Just the Doctor. Glad to see you and Bucky have... reacquainted yourselves. We're just going to get Jack back home, any minute now," he said, banging a fist against the console. "Then we're off to the Coralaxi galaxy. Got a distress call, you know."

“Bucky said,” Steve replied. “Are we expecting trouble?” He paused, suddenly making an awkward movement with his shoulders. “Wish I still had my shield.”

“Oh, that's right,” the Doctor said, pointing a finger at him. “You fight with a shield; I'd forgotten about that.”

Donna blinked. “You  _ know _ about that?”

“I looked him up,” the Doctor said, grinning. He punched something up on the console, and the TARDIS obligingly played a bit of newsreel footage featuring Steve, in his stars-and-stripes, demonstrating what he could do with his shield. “You see,” the Doctor continued, his face growing serious, “the matter of HYDRA was a very serious one, and the concern about it wasn't limited just to Earth.”

“It wasn't?” Steve and Jack both asked in unison. They exchanged a quick glance before turning their attention back to the Doctor.

“It was not,” the Doctor confirmed. He punched something else up on the console, and the monitor displayed a picture of a glowing blue cube. “Recognize this?”

“Hey, yeah,” Steve said, pointing at the image. “That's that cube that Schmidt used to... I don't even know what he was doing.”

“It's called the Tesseract,” the Doctor explained. “It's one of six objects that are called Infinity Stones. Individually, these are objects of immense power, capable of nearly anything an individual's mind can comprehend. When used together in concert... well.” He waved an expressive hand. “So you can see why there would be some concern when word got out that the Asgardians had not only been so careless as to misplace the bloody thing, but that it had got loose and was active on a world that wasn't ready for it.”

“Yeah, that's...” Bucky cleared his throat. “That's kind of a big deal.”

“He used it to... I don't know,” Steve said, shaking his head. He closed his eyes, remembering the details. “He had it in some kind of machine, I guess the engine or something. I don't know; I didn't have a lot of time to look at it. But I hit him with my shield, and knocked him into it, and I guess I broke it.” He smirked slightly. “Then he got up and he picked up the cube, and he... He stared at it for a minute. Like he was hypnotized. And it started shooting off little bits of blue light, and then suddenly...” He opened his eyes, but it was clear that he wasn't seeing the control room. He used his hands to illustrate what he was saying. “It was like the whole top section of the plane was just  _ gone _ , all over that way, and it wasn't the sky out past it; it was deep space. Stars and galaxies and...” He shook his head. “It was... beautiful. But then.” He stopped, swallowed hard. “It was like fire. Blue fire, starting at the cube in his hand and then down his arm and then eating up his whole body, and he screamed... and then he just...” He illustrated with his hands again. “ _ Whoosh _ . And he was gone. And the cube fell onto the grate and burned through, and then it burned through the bottom of the plane and it was gone.”

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky whispered, his face pale.

Steve pulled Bucky in closer, reassuring him that he was still there. "Did they ever find the cube?"

"Howard Stark did, while he was looking for you. The rest, I can't tell you, but as I said, there are other gems out there and one of them happens to be in the Coralaxi galaxy."

"I can help," Jack said, pushing himself off the console.

"Oh, no, you don't," the Doctor said. "I've got my hands full with these three, I don't need you mucking about in another galaxy. You're trouble enough in this one."

There was a thunk and the door to the TARDIS swung open, giving them a view of Roald Dahl Plass. Jack took that as a sign and nodded. He pulled Donna in for a hug, then shook the Doctor's hand before standing in front of Steve and Bucky.

"It's been... interesting, Barnes. I wish you the best. You take care of him, Rogers," he said. Then he pulled himself to full attention, saluting properly. Steve and Bucky both returned it and Jack smiled before walking out the door. It swung closed again. Before anyone could blink they were whoosh-whooshing their way to the Coralaxi galaxy.

"Do you know which gem is out there?" Donna asked.

“The Soul Gem,” the Doctor replied. “As they go, it's one of the less concerning; the trouble is, it's sentient, and it has a desire to collect souls.”

“That doesn't sound any  _ less _ concerning to me, Spaceboy,” Donna pointed out. “How are we supposed to stop it?”

“Well,” the Doctor said, “we could always try reasoning with it.”

“Yeah, kind of like we reasoned with those aliens that came through the Rift?” Bucky snarked.

“Here, now, I was perfectly willing to reason with them,” the Doctor protested.

“So was I,” Bucky replied. “Until that one decided to threaten you.”

“What happened after that?” Steve asked, even though he was fairly sure he already knew the answer.

Donna grinned. “Bucky's got damn good aim with that laser cannon of his, that's what happened.”

Bucky smirked. “Popped his head like a grape.”

“Really,” the Doctor protested.

“Okay, so,” Steve said loudly, clearly calling the meeting to order. “What exactly is it that we're looking at doing in the Coralaxi galaxy, and how exactly are we planning on doing it?”

“Running,” Donna said. “Probably a lot of running.”

“Also some shooting,” Bucky added. “And a lot of yelling.”

“Enthusiastically,” the Doctor finished. 

Steve rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling. “You're as bad as the Commandos,” he complained.

Bucky leaned up and kissed his cheek. “And you love it.”

Steve’s cheeks got a little pink. Then he nodded to one of the screens mounted on the console. “Does that show where we are?”

“Among other things,” the Doctor said. “I’d remark on your surprising calm, but as Bucky pointed out to me before, you did undergo an extraordinary change.”

“I’ll say,” Donna grinned, winking at Steve. Bucky laughed out loud at that.

“What can you tell us about this galaxy?” Steve asked, forging past the embarrassment to change the subject.

“Very similar to your own. We’ll be lucky if the Soul Gem is on a planet that is compatible. I hope it is; I don’t want to waste energy creating more spacesuits.”

“Spacesuits?” Steve asked, looking a little confused.

“You mean you don’t know where the gem is exactly?” Bucky said. “Doc, you’re not gonna make a good impression on Stevie here.”

“It was pure luck we got the signal in the first place,” he said, pressing buttons here and there on the console. “I did say it was quite far to get there.” He picked up a rubber mallet and whacked something. “There we are; won't be long now.”

“Who exactly called us, anyway?” Bucky asked, leaning against the console and poking at one of the readouts.

The Doctor smacked his hand away. “Are you trying to blow things up?”

“Not today,” Bucky replied, grinning broadly. “So?”

“The Coralaxi High Council,” the Doctor replied. “They consolidated power across the galaxy several hundred years ago. It actually works fairly well for them; I'm not generally in favor of large centralized governments, but they've worked it out fairly well. Of course, I suppose the rudimentary hive mind helps with that.”

Donna chortled. “Possibly.” 

“What do we know about the situation, besides what you've already told us?” Steve asked, studying the monitor where the information on the Soul Gem was displayed.

Bucky edged up beside Donna and nudged her with his elbow. “See that face?”

“Yeah?”

“That's his Planning An Op face. They took pictures of that face and plastered it on posters from New York to Los Angeles, and then they dropped leaflets from Vichy to Berlin. Uncle Sam's comin' for Hitler, and it ain't gonna be pretty when he gets there.”

Donna smiled slightly. “My Grandad fought, you know,” she said softly.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Did he?”

Donna nodded, her eyes on the Doctor and Steve as they conferred at the monitor. “Yeah. He was too young, you know, but he lied about his age and they took him anyway.”

“Sounds like a badass,” Bucky said softly. 

Donna smiled. “He really is,” she said. “I'll have to bring you to meet him; he'd love that.”

“I can see it now, all three of us trading war stories til the sun comes up,” Bucky said. He watched Steve, wondering what was going on in his head, and raised his voice to speak across the room. “What ya thinkin’?”

“I’m thinking there could be trouble,” Steve answered.

“Always is with the Doctor,” Donna said. “If you like, I’m sure the TARDIS could replicate your suit, make it out of better material. She might even be able to make you a shield.”

The Doctor looked up from a screen, grinning like a fool. “Have I told you lately how brilliant you are, Donna?”

“No, but it never hurts to hear it. Can she do it?”

“Oh, yes, but only if Steve wants her to; he’ll be the one wearing the thing.”

Steve shook his head. “Thanks, but no on the suit, it was way too hot and it… bunched in the wrong places. I’d take a shield, if it can be managed. It doesn’t have to be decorated.” He paused. “It was made out of vibranium, though. That's really rare.”

“Only on Earth,” the Doctor replied. He punched up something on a secondary monitor and pointed at it. “There's your specifications. Vibranium-steel alloy, about three-quarters of a meter in diameter, curved like a discus, grips on the back, weighs about... five and a half kilograms. Sound right?”

Steve nodded. “Sounds exactly right.”

“I've got that much lying about on a scrap heap somewhere,” the Doctor replied easily. “Not to worry; the TARDIS will take care of you.”

“Got an armory, Doc?” Bucky asked. “Lasers are cool and all, but I miss the feel of a gun in my hands.”

“I don't like guns,” the Doctor replied, looking oddly cagey.

“We all know that,” Donna replied. “Except maybe Steve, but he just got here, so he'll learn. But the answer to Bucky's question is...?”

The Doctor sighed heavily. “Yes.” He waved a hand. “Down by the old kitchens.”

“Why?” Donna asked. “If you don’t like guns….”

“It’s something that’s been there since my last regeneration,” he replied, frowning. He began to pace around the console, looking disconcerted.

“Regeneration?” Bucky and Steve asked in unison.

“A topic for another time,” the Doctor replied, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ve tried and tried to get the TARDIS to remove it. Even did the programming myself. But it kept reappearing, so I made her hide it away. It seems she knew better than I did - which, to be fair, she often does. I’ll take you there.”

“I'll get the TARDIS to show me,” Bucky replied. “Steve? Coming?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Best to have backups. Donna?”

“No, someone’s gotta keep an eye on His Nibs,” she nodded to the Doctor.

Bucky laughed at the annoyed “ _Donna!”_ as he and Steve walked away. He noticed a patch of wall blinking a bright red and indicated it to Steve. The TARDIS kept giving them directions until they reached a door that glowed. Bucky grinned, putting a hand on the wall next to the door and giving it a quick pat.

“Thanks, Sweetheart.” The entire corridor flushed pink before returning to its usual dirty orange.

“Are you flirting with a spaceship?” Steve said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“It works; she treats me right. Now let’s see what the Doc’s got hiding away.” He pulled the door open and stepped into the room. It was dark at first but was soon flooded with light. Bucky let out a low whistle. “For someone who doesn’t like guns, the Doc’s sure got a lot of them.”

Every single wall was covered in guns. There were tables set out with pistols and ammo was stacked in a corner. Bucky went straight for the M1928A1 Thompson. He took it off the wall and stroked its barrel. He brought it up to his shoulder, testing the weight and feel of it.

“I really shouldn’t be jealous of a rifle,” Steve said, idly looking over all the tables, picking up a Luger.

“Don't worry, baby, I'll put my hands all over you later,” Bucky replied, tossing Steve a flirtatious wink. “Hey, Sweetheart, how much ammo we got for this thing?”

In reply, a drawer beneath the wall rack slid open. Bucky hummed softly, pulling out the boxes of ammunition. “Always leave one,” he said, rattling one box at Steve before putting it back. “That way you make sure she's got a... what did he call it?” He paused, brows drawing together as he pulled the memory out. “A representative sample to replicate from.”

Steve considered this, then nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “If she's building copies of things, she needs to have the thing she's copying; otherwise, it's like trying to draw a sketch from memory, and sometimes you get it wrong.”

“Exactly,” Bucky said, tucking one box of rifle ammunition back into the drawer before sliding it shut again. “I don't suppose there's any kind of a stash of, say, utility belts or tactical jackets or...?” His voice trailed off as a whole section of the wall clicked softly and swung open, revealing a closet tucked behind the weaponry racks. “Aw, look at you, you sweet, sexy thing.”

“I can leave you two alone,” Steve offered, grinning.

Bucky laughed. “It's a habit I picked up from the Doc,” he explained, pulling the closet door open. “The TARDIS, she ain't just a ship, man. She's alive. She's got a mind and a personality, and she is definitely a dame. So you gotta talk to her like one. You gotta tell her how much you appreciate the lengths she goes to for us, to make sure we have everything we need, and all. I don't know about the raw materials or the science or whatever, but I can guess that it takes a lot of energy and effort for her to do stuff. Like the bathroom.”

Steve blinked, looking up from the Walther P38 he was examining. “What about the bathroom?”

“Before you came, it was about half the size it is now, and there was only one sink, and one shower head. When you came, and she knew you were gonna stay, and she figured out how it is with us? She redid it for two. Because that's what she does; she takes care of us. And there ain't a whole lot we can do in return, except keep her company and keep her fueled up and be appreciative. So.” He shrugged, pulling out a tactical vest and a utility belt. “You want one of these? There's one looks like it'll fit you.”

“Why not?” Steve shrugged. “I haven’t really had the chance to test it out, but I don’t think even the serum could heal me from something big.”

Bucky stopped rifling through the closet to look at Steve. Then he dropped what he’d had in his hands and crossed the room in a few steps. He took Steve’s arms and shook him. “Don’t you go pulling any more hero shit on me, Stevie. I only just got you back.”

“God, Bucky, no,” Steve said, hugging him close. “I’d never… not intentionally anyway. But as this ship and everyone in it has proved, it’s a big universe out there.”

Bucky leaned back a little bit, putting his hands on Steve's face. “I can't. You don't understand.” He closed his eyes, pulling Steve down so that their foreheads rested against one another. “When Donna told me you were dead,” he said, pausing for a deep breath, “for a long time, I wanted to die, too. It was all I could do, some days, just to keep breathing. Forget about putting one foot in front of the other, Stevie; I couldn't even get out of bed.” He felt hot tears trickling down his face. “You saw that shirt. When it got bad, I'd pull that shirt out and breathe into it and remember how you smelled. But when it got really bad, sometimes I'd go down to the engine room and scream.”

Steve's fingers gripped Bucky's shirt, pulling him close. “I  _ do _ understand,” he said softly, his voice cracking. “Because before that happened, I had to watch you fall off that train. And when I put that plane down into the water, the last thing I remember thinking was that I wasn't scared, because I knew I was gonna see you again.”

“Must be psychic or somethin’,” Bucky whispered. He leaned in and kissed Steve, soft and sweet. He pulled back before they could get too involved. “Get a load of the pair of us.”

“It’s gonna take a while,” Steve said, stroking Bucky's cheek. He cleared his throat. “Meanwhile, why don’t you go back to fondling the weaponry. There are some things here I think I might like to take.”

“I promise to save some of my lust for you,” Bucky said. He pressed a kiss to Steve’s cheek before going back to the closet to pick out some belts. He set aside the vest for Steve, hoping it would never need to be used.

“What are we going to carry this all in?” Steve asked.

Another drawer popped out of a wall, displaying heavy-duty packs and bags of all sorts.

“Uh, thanks? Doll?” Steve ventured. The walls of the room went a soft yellow and there was a low humming noise that sounded like approval.

“Think she likes you, punk,” Bucky said with a grin. “Keep that up and we’ll never lack for anything again.”

***

“So, the thing about the Coralaxi,” the Doctor said when Steve and Bucky rejoined him in the control room, “is that their High Council works through the hive mind to make sure that everyone's all right with everything that happens, and if they aren't, to work out a compromise so that the largest number of individuals who can be satisfied will be.”

“That sounds fair,” Steve said.

“It is, mostly,” the Doctor replied. “It's how they've managed to maintain a more-or-less peaceful galaxy for several centuries. The trouble is that it's a bit... cumbersome. Getting anything done with them, well, it's rather like mating elephants.”

“Everything happens at high levels and it takes two years to see any results?” Donna offered.

“Exactly,” the Doctor replied. There was a beep from the console. “By the way, Steve, your shield's ready.”

Not far away, a storage cabinet popped open, and the shelf slid out, bearing Steve's new shield. It had exactly the same color scheme as the old one, and Steve reached out to run his fingers across it, a soft smile crossing his face. “It's perfect,” he said, reaching out to stroke the wall gently. “Thank you, Doll.”

A low hum was his only reply. The cabinet closed, only to pop open a moment later with another gift: a strange-looking contraption made of straps. Steve crowed. “Oh! I didn't even think to ask for it. Thank you!” He shrugged the contraption on over his shoulders, then lifted the shield up and over his head, snugging it onto what was, apparently, a carrying harness. He shrugged, then did a number of interesting maneuvers with his head, shoulders, and arms. “It's perfect,” he assured the TARDIS, giving her another pat. “Thank you, again.”

“Good thing you’re the only one who knows how to pilot her, Spaceman,” Donna said. “Otherwise I’d think you weren’t her favorite anymore.”

The Doctor blustered and fluttered, making the other three laugh. The TARDIS just gave a few beeps and a short sharp whistle. He calmed down and patted the console. Then he flipped a switch and turned a screen so everyone could see it.

“Back to business! This is the Soul Gem,” he said, pointing. There was a rotating picture of a small, green oval. “It might not look like much, but in the wrong hands… well let’s say we don’t want that to happen.”

“So how does the Coralaxi government fit into this?” Steve asked. He’d taken off the shield, letting it rest against the railing.

“They’re the ones who called me, us, so they have a vested interest in it not being found by undesirables.”

“So we won’t get caught up in the machinery of government?” Donna asked.

“Maybe, maybe not,” the Doctor hedged.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Bucky said.

Donna sighed. “It’s never a good sign when he’s not certain.”

“My best guess is that they've found it, spent a decade or so discussing what the best thing is to do about it, and called us to come and carry it away.” The Doctor shrugged. “Time Lords used to do that sort of thing all the time, back before the Time War.”

“Time Lords?” Steve asked.

“Oh, right, you've missed that part,” Donna said. “The Doctor's a genuine spaceman from another planet. Got an extra heart and all.”

Steve looked the Doctor up and down. “Funny,” he said, “you don't look like a little green Martian.”

“That's because Martians aren't little or green,” the Doctor replied. “And I'm not a Martian. I'm a Time Lord.”

“So, not from Mars. That's disappointing,” Steve murmured, fighting back a grin. “Saturn, then?”

“Oh, for the love of...” The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Gallifrey, if you must. It's a very long way from here and a very long time ago, and we can't go there any more, and I'm not telling that story right now, so if we could possibly, just for a moment,  _ focus _ .”

“We are focused, Doc,” Bucky said, smirking. “Soul Gem, Coralaxi High Council, take it off somewhere and make it not bother them any more. Only we've got to actually go there so they can tell us if we're right or not.”

“That's the thing,” the Doctor replied, turning toward the doors. “We're here.”

“TARDIS say what the weather’s like out there?” Donna asked. “Don’t want to be running around an alien galaxy too hot or too cold.”

“You’re fine as you are, Goldilocks,” the Doctor retorted. “Now, allons-y!”

“He really likes that phrase,” Steve remarked.

“You get used to it,” Bucky said, handing Steve the shield just in case.


	6. Chapter 6

The atmosphere was very Earth-like, with a subtle hint of jasmine floating on the air. The buildings were very much like any to be found in a major metropolitan city, only with more glass and lots of angles. The major difference, was of course, the Coralaxi.

“They look like….” Donna struggled to describe them.

“Like someone took a bear and made it fuck a camel?” Bucky offered.

The Coralaxi were large aliens, almost seven feet tall, covered in short, coarse fur that came in all the colors of the rainbow, and they had humps on their backs. The Doctor was looking all around at the scenery, grinning wide and holding his arms out.

“Isn’t the universe wonderful?” he said.

“Sure, if you don't mind rainbow-colored camelbears,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“You know,” Steve said conversationally, “by my own personal internal clock, less than twenty-four hours ago I was fighting the Red Skull for control of a plane that was on its way to destroying the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States. In the last twenty-four hours, I have watched him be sucked into outer space by a mystical cube, crashed in the sea ice, woken up sixty-plus years later, and been rescued by my presumed-dead boyfriend in a magic blue phone box. And now there's camelbears. I feel like this is somehow  _ not _ the logical progression of deviance that the nuns always suggested my life would follow if I kept hanging around with that no-good Barnes kid.”

“Those nuns never did know what they were talking about,” Bucky replied, his mouth curling up in that familiar smirk.

The two of them and Donna hung back near the TARDIS while the Doctor strode forward to greet the Coralaxi genially. Steve leaned against the blue wooden surface and studied Donna as she watched the Doctor. “So, I'm curious,” he said as he examined her expression. “What brings a dame like you to a spaceship like this?”

“Oh, simple really. He saved me from my now ex-fiance who was going to feed me to a giant spider-alien. Wanted me to go with him then, I said no. I sort of wish I had. Met up with him again a year or so later and haven’t looked back since.”

“Simple,” Steve repeated, shaking his head. He looked at her, watching the Doctor. “You love him.”

“What! No, we aren’t, I never.” She stumbled to a stop, turning as red as her hair. “We’re just mates,” she finished in a mumble.

“That’s how Bucky and I started,” Steve said softly.

Bucky looked over and butted in. “Back at the hospital, you were awful quick to deny it, doll. Might wanna think about why that was.” He went over to see how the Doctor was faring with the Coralaxi, leaving Donna and Steve alone.

“Take the advice, Donna. You don’t want to end up like me and Buck before you came along, thinking we’d lost each other forever.” Steve shook his head. “It was just a few days, for me, but it's the most miserable few days I've ever spent in my life. And you know what it was like for him; you saw him.”

Donna swallowed hard. “He doesn't think of me that way,” she said softly. “He... There was someone before me. A girl - Rose. He loved her. And he lost her, and he can't ever get her back. And then there was Martha; she only traveled with him for a little while, but _she_ loved _him_ , and it got very... complicated. So when I said I'd go... I told him, I said I wasn't interested in him that way. Too skinny, you know. And it was true; I wasn't interested.” She laughed softly, but there was pain in the sound. “And he said all he wanted was a mate. A friend, you know. Someone to travel with, to keep the quiet away. Well, I'm good at that.”

Steve made a soft, sympathetic noise. “How long have you been traveling with him now, by your reckoning?”

“Oh,” she said, blowing out a soft breath. “It's hard to say. You lose track sometimes, in the TARDIS. Time-travel and all.” She shook her head. “At least a year, perhaps a bit longer.”

“And in that time, your feelings for him, they've changed, right?”

She nodded, her mouth tight. Steve grinned, reaching over to lay a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “So how do you know _his_ haven't?”

Before she could answer the Doctor looked over, still grinning and called out to them.

“Come on you two, my new friend here is going to take us to the main government facility,” he said, arm wrapped around a Coralaxi who was the most violent shade of purple Donna had ever laid her eyes on.

“Excuse me for taking my rest before all the running started,” she replied, moving towards the Doctor, Steve following. “I haven’t exactly got on the best shoes for that.”

“I’m sure Stevie and I could carry you,” Bucky said.

“Like I’m a sack of groceries to be carted around? No thank you, I’ll just ditch the shoes if it comes to it. Now let’s go find out about this gem. I’m in need of a good adventure right now.” She strode off, catching up to the Doctor quickly, leaving the two soldiers behind.

Bucky looked at Steve in surprise. “You gonna let a dame out-walk you, Captain?”

“If the dame in question could harm me in more ways than you, I sure will, Sergeant,” Steve replied with a grin. “Besides, I figure it's better to let her go first anyway.”

“Why's that?”

“Couple reasons,” Steve said. “First, it makes sound tactical sense. We bring up the rear; if anything goes wrong, we've got the firepower to make a hole and get ourselves back to the TARDIS.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said. “And second?”

“Second,” Steve continued blithely, grinning and slinging an arm around Bucky's shoulders, “if I hang back, it means I get to walk with you.”

Bucky laughed. “Yeah, okay, you got a point,” he said. “Just try not to block my arm, yeah? That's my fightin' arm. And you never know; I might need it.”

As it turned out, those words were prescient; within forty-five minutes, Steve was learning just exactly what they had all meant about the running, and the shooting, and the yelling, and the enthusiasm. “Did we get the location of the Soul Gem?” Steve shouted as he ducked a shot, holding his shield out to deflect other projectiles. 

“Yes!” the Doctor shouted back, dodging behind a building, Donna in front of him. Steve caught sight of them out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor trying to shield Donna with his body. Steve would have laughed if he wasn’t busy trying to dodge weapons fire. The Coralaxi didn’t use what any human would recognize as a gun, but that didn’t matter when you were actively being shot at.

“What did you say to that Councilwoman?” Donna shrieked, hitting the Doctor on the arm.

“I just complimented her on her choice of fur enhancement. I think the translation got mixed up,” the Doctor replied. “Bucky, have we got a clear path back to the TARDIS?”

“Just a minute more, Doc!” Bucky was firing shots from the laser, not really hitting anything, using it more for intimidation than anything. He had a Colt in his other hand, targeting knees and elbows because he knew the Doctor would object to any unnecessary deaths.

“Not sure we  _ have _ a minute!” Donna shrieked. “Bucky!”

“ _Now!_ ” Bucky shouted. “Go, go, go!”

The Doctor grabbed Donna's hand and leapt from his hiding place, scrambling for the TARDIS door at top speed. Steve covered them, blocking the energy bolts being shot in their direction with his shield and herding them into safety as fast as he could. Bucky brought up the rear, slinging lasers and firing that Colt to maximum effect. As soon as he was within range of the door, Steve leaned out and grabbed him by the shirt collar, hauling him inside and slamming the door shut.

The two of them overbalanced due to Steve's serum-enhanced yank, and they fell to the floor grating, the door slamming shut behind them. There was a long moment of utter silence, broken only by banging on the outer doors. And then, quite suddenly, Steve giggled.

“What the fuck is the laughing for?” Bucky asked, hefting himself up into a sitting position.

“Camelbears,” Steve said, gasping for breath. “We were running for our lives from camelbears.”

Bucky grinned and laughed along with him. Donna glanced over at the Doctor. “Should I be worried about those two? Steve I get, but Bucky knows this is routine for us.”

“Adrenaline,” the Doctor said. “Everyone reacts differently to it. Call it a subset of the flight or fight response.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Steve said, drawing in a deep breath and pushing himself off the grating. He held out a hand to Bucky, pulling him up. “So where now?”

“Halfway across the galaxy, I'm afraid,” the Doctor replied. “Apparently the gem has actually taken over a small system in the western spiral arm. We'll have to try to initiate communications with it.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Donna said, maintaining a straight face with obvious effort.

The Doctor glanced in her direction, the corner of his mouth tipping upward. “A bit, yeah.”

There was silence for a moment before Donna said, “Perhaps we should... plan a strategy? Just to be safe?”

The two of them looked at one another for a long moment, Steve and Bucky watching. And then, in unison, they both said, “Nah!”

All four of them collapsed in laughter again. Once they calmed, Steve said, “Seriously, though, we do need some kind of plan.”

The Doctor nodded. “We'll talk about it in the morning, when we're fresh.” He waved them away. “I'll say this,” he said. “I _do_ think we should get a bit of a kip before we go. We might be stupid and reckless, but we can be stupid and reckless with a good night's sleep under our belts.”

Bucky grabbed Steve by the hand. “I'll take it,” he said, towing Steve out of the control room with obvious intent. “Don't start the fun without us!”

Donna watched them leave with a small smile on her face. “They look happy.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said absently. “Young love and all that.”

“Don’t you… never mind,” she said, brushing an imaginary piece of lint from her blouse.

“I do miss it sometimes. I’ve loved a lot of people in my long life, Donna,” he said softly.

“That’s what I wanted with Lance, what they have,” she said.

“I’m sure you’ll find it someday. Now off to bed with you, lots more running to do soon,” he said, making shooing motions with his hand.

“Only if you promise you won’t be far behind. You may not be human, but you still need sleep, Doctor,” she admonished.

“I promise,” he said.

***

Some time later, when Bucky was dozing with his head on Steve's chest, he felt Steve's fingers running along the surface of his metal arm, tracing the ridges of the little articulated plates and the divots of the fasteners. He sighed a soft, contented breath, but then he said, “Does it bother you?”

“Sometimes,” Steve admitted, his voice low and raw. “Because it reminds me that I couldn't catch you. I wasn't strong enough or fast enough or... or _whatever_ enough, and you fell, and you suffered...” His voice broke and he paused, clearing his throat and fighting back tears. “And it was because I wasn't _enough_.”

Bucky reached up and cupped Steve's face with his hand, his thumb running across Steve's chin. “You are always enough,” he said simply.

Steve pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of Bucky's head. Then, staring into the dark of their bedroom, he said, “How did you know that I couldn't get drunk?”

Bucky raised his head, squinting at Steve in the gloom. “What?”

“How did you know that I couldn't get drunk?” Steve repeated, his voice carrying that deceptively soft tone that Bucky had learned a long time ago meant that he was dangerously focused on a single conversational goal. “The first time _I_ knew I couldn't get drunk was when I tried, after you fell. So how did _you_ know?”

“I… the TARDIS. Donna and the Doctor, especially the Doctor, kept telling me there were certain things I couldn’t know. Donna made me promise to never ask. Changin’ the timeline can be dangerous. I almost didn’t know about you fallin’ into the ice, but Donna’s got a soft heart. I wanted to know more about the stuff that made you all….” Bucky gestured to Steve’s body.

“And the TARDIS figures into this how?”

“I asked, and she showed me. Took me a while to decipher some of the scientific mumbo jumbo, but I learned what made you... you. And maybe what might have happened to me.”

That made Steve stop the gentle touches to his arm. Steve’s grip tightened for a moment before he let go and looked down at Bucky. “Are you okay? Did something happen to you? When?”

“Back at the HYDRA camp, I think… I dunno, Stevie. I know that fucker Zola was doing things to the other men, but I don’t know what. When you found me, strapped to that table, I’d been his latest lab rat. I’ve had some questions, but I didn’t know how to ask the Doc without violating his rules about the timeline. Plus I wanted to keep my promise to Donna.”

“What did you promise her?”

Bucky sighed. “Not to go lookin'.” He sat up, scooting back to lean against the headboard. He looked down at his hands for a long moment. “Times like this, I wish I still smoked,” he admitted, a wry half-smile crossing his face. He leaned his head back against the wall. “The library, you know, I said how it goes on for actual days? Well, there's a couple reasons for that. One of 'em is because it's so damn big. You could put the New York Public Library inside it - the big one in Manhattan, I mean - and shake it, and it'd rattle. It's  _huge_ . And there's books in there about everything. But the Doc, he's got a soft spot for Earth, so he's got a lotta Earth history books in there. And like I said... knowin' about the timeline, it gets... problematic.”

“Knowing about the future, you mean,” Steve said, rolling over on his stomach to look up at Bucky. “Knowing what's going to happen.”

“Right. Because Stevie, if I'da known they coulda pulled you out? If I'da known you were still alive down there? There's no power in the universe coulda stopped me from findin' you and diggin' you out. With my bare hands, if I had to. But I couldn't, see? Because you goin' down, and you bein' pulled back out again, that's what the Doc calls a fixed point. It _can't_ change. If it does, the whole goddamn universe could end up collapsin' in on itself.”

“Like a load-bearing wall,” Steve said.

“That sounds right,” Bucky agreed. “So Donna made me promise not to go lookin' for stuff about you, or about me. But the TARDIS, she's pretty smart, and she understood what it was I was wantin' to know about when I started askin' about the serum and stuff. So she did the lookin' for me, and filtered out what I wasn't allowed to see, and she showed me the rest. Because that little rat bastard was tryin' to recreate the stuff they used on you.”

“That has to explain it,” Steve said, considering. “Because, let's just be honest here. That fall should've killed you.”

“Yeah, it should've,” Bucky replied. “And instead of dyin', the only thing happened was I lost my arm.” He held up the prosthetic. “Not that you'd know it, with this thing. It feels the same, you know? It even gets itches sometimes.”

Steve reached out and took the metal hand in his own. He turned it over and began tracing patterns on the palm. Bucky tried not to squirm.

“Ticklish?” Steve asked, keeping his face blank.

“Maybe.”

“Have you noticed anything else about your body?”

“Haven’t gotten so much as a cold since then, smaller wounds disappear in hours, eat like a horse.”

Steve snorted. “I know how that feels. During the USO tour I would keep diner kitchens humming when we visited.”

Bucky nodded. “So, there you go. I figure whatever they did to me, must be the same thing they did to you. Only difference is I didn't get any bigger. But then, they didn't put me in a box and shoot me fulla radiation or whatever that stuff was.” He cuffed Steve gently with his right hand. “I can't believe you  _ volunteered _ to let that asshole Stark do whatever he was doin'. He didn't even  _ know _ what he was doin'!”

“They knew well enough -”

“The hell they did, Stevie!” Bucky exclaimed. “I've seen his notes! You had a fifty-fifty shot of  _ dyin' _ in that box, and that's  _ before _ you take into account how fragile you were!” He grabbed Steve by the shoulders, pulling him up close. “You listen to me, Stevie,” he said, his voice shaking. “You cannot go doin' shit like that. You hear me? You can't. I can't take it.”

“Buck,” Steve said softly, laying his head on Bucky’s shoulder. “I had faith. But I can honestly tell you that I’m done with the wild experiments. I’m not going anywhere or doing anything without you right there by my side. I can’t promise that I’ll stop fighting for what I think is right.”

“Not asking you to do that,” Bucky said, combing his fingers into Steve’s hair. “You were doin’ that before all of this. I’d be a fool to think you’d stop now. Just remember that I always want to have your back. You’re everything to me, Steve.”

“You’re everything to me, Buck. I can live without knowing what happened during the years I was gone, as long as I’ve got you right here.”

Bucky held on tightly, pulling Steve close, resting his forehead against Steve's hair. “I can't...” He paused, swallowed hard. “It's gonna take me some time,” he finally said. “Gettin' used to you bein' here. You were dead for months. I've only had you back for a day or so, and I just...”

“Shh,” Steve whispered. “I know. It's all right.”

“No, you don't know!” Bucky's grip tightened painfully for a moment before he pushed Steve away, shoving himself out of the bed and pacing the room. “You have _no idea_ what I'm feeling right now. God, I just... I just wanna lock you up in a room someplace and never let you out. I just wanna keep you safe, Stevie, that's all I ever wanted to do is keep you safe.” He turned to face Steve, pushing his hands through his hair. “All I ever wanted to do,” he repeated, his voice a broken whisper. “I just needed you to be safe. And you, you son of a bitch, I hadn't turned my back on you for five minutes and you let Howard Stark try to kill you, and then you come prancing into that fuckin' HYDRA base like it was nothin', and I just...” He trailed off, turning his back to sit on the end of the bed and put his head in his hands.

“I coulda went home,” he said softly. “I coulda went home, Stevie. Colonel Phillips offered me my ticket. Honorable discharge, with a medal and all. But you were still there, and you damn sure weren't gonna go home. Not with a shiny new command and everybody, fuckin' everybody, finally lookin' at you like you were worth somethin'. Never mind how I _always_ looked at you like that, never mind how I _always_ knew what you were worth. Never mind how all I ever fuckin' wanted was for you to be _safe_. So how the hell was I supposed to go home and leave you there? Even knowin' I wasn't enough for you any more.” He paused, swallowing hard. “Any more. Who am I kiddin'? I was never enough for you. I always knew you'd go lookin' for bigger and better, I just wasn't expectin' it to happen quite like that.”

“Buck, God. What do you want me to say to that?” Steve asked. “I finally have a body to go with what I’ve always felt inside and you want me to not use it? So yes, I went for bigger and better, Buck. But when it comes to what I feel, in here?” he tapped a finger over his heart. “It’s always been you. It can never be anyone but you. If I thought going back and being small again would fix everything, I’d do it right now. But it’s not. If I hadn’t jumped into that box, Lord knows what would have happened to you under Zola’s care.”

Steve moved to the end of the bed, sitting next to Bucky. “Every day until I met Abraham Erskine I worried about you. I know you didn’t enlist, Buck. I saw the draft notice, but I didn’t say anything. I knew in that moment there was going to be a chance I would never see you again. You went off without me, Buck and it killed me. If you’d…if there….” He swallowed down tears of his own. “I would have stood there over your grave as just your friend. I couldn’t have been anything but that. Your Ma would’ve gotten the flag, all the condolences. I’d just be skinny Steve Rogers, best friend. I would never have been able to say what’s been in my heart, in my soul for all these years.”

“What’s that?” Bucky bit off.

“Father Patrick said I was going to go to hell for it, but I can’t believe that a God that made me feel this way would ever be that cruel. I love you, Buck.” He reached up and laid his hands on Bucky's shoulders, squeezing firmly. “So don't you dare... don't you ever tell me I don't know what you went through thinking I was dead, because _you died first_ , Bucky! I love you, and you died first!”

Bucky sucked in a breath. He looked up at Steve, his eyes huge. “You've never said it before,” he said.

“Neither have you,” Steve replied, a bit defensively.

“No.” Bucky stared at him for a long moment before lunging, burying his hands in Steve's hair and kissing him, hard and desperate. “I love you,” he managed to say, between kisses. “I love you, you fuckin' asshole. I've loved you my whole goddamn life.”

Steve, laughing through the tears that glistened on his own cheeks, kissed him back, pulling him close. They held onto one another for a very long time before he said, “How long, really?”

“Really?” Bucky said. “Since... God, at least since I was thirteen. That's when my Ma sat me down and had a talk with me about you.”

Steve recoiled slightly. “What?”

Bucky flushed. “She knew,” he admitted. “She knew before I did. She sat me down one time and talked to me about you. You'd just been real sick - that mighta been the time you had rheumatic fever - and she said we needed to talk. And she said she could tell how I cared about you a lot, but that I had to be careful because the world wouldn't always understand how it was between us.”

Steve cupped Bucky's cheek. “Your Ma,” he said softly, “was an amazing woman.”

“Yeah, she was,” Bucky said, smiling softly at the memory of the woman who'd died just a few weeks before he fell from that train. “And Father Patrick can kiss my ass.”

***

Donna had tossed and turned in her bed for what seemed like hours before finally coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to get any sleep. She got up, threw on her robe and padded off to the kitchen to make some tea. Her mind raced with everything that had happened in the last few days. She was thinking about what Steve had said. Was she really going to admit that her feelings about the Doctor had changed?

The TARDIS already had the stove on when she walked in. “Thanks, love.” She filled the kettle and picked out a tea, then sat down to wait for it to boil. She was startled a moment later when Bucky put a hand on her shoulder. “Oh! I think we need to put a bell on you,” she said, hand on her chest.

“Nah, wouldn’t be as fun then, dollface. Can’t sleep?”

“No, my mind's been racing. You?”

“Just grabbing somethin’ for me an’ Steve,” he said, rummaging through the cupboards. “Wanna talk about it? I can hear about your woes; you heard enough about mine.”

“No… yes, just grab the kettle, it’s about to go off.”

Bucky nodded, taking the kettle off the stove and pouring the water into her cup. He set it front of her and sat down at the table. “So, tell Uncle Bucky all about it.”

“I think Steve was right. I’m not sure being just mates is going to work.”

“You love him. The Doc.”

“I do. But I… he’s so…ugh,” she threw up her hands in frustration.

Bucky leaned across the table and took Donna’s hands. “I think the Doctor is one of those guys who needs help.”

“I know that, Buck-o,” she snorted.

“Not in that way,” he laughed. “He’s the kind of guy who needs to be hit in the face with the reality of a situation. Subtlety ain’t gonna cut it. Tell him. Bold and brash as you like. If he can’t tell you it back, I think it might be time to say goodbye to the TARDIS.”

“I wanted to travel with him forever,” she admitted in a low, sad whisper, looking down into her cup of tea. After a beat, she said, “Let me sleep on it.”

“Sure thing, Donna,” he said, squeezing her hand one last time before standing up. He grabbed several boxes of cookies, then snagged some milk out of the fridge. “Just remember that sometimes the leap is worth it.”


	7. Chapter 7

When they arrived in the little system where the Soul Gem had taken over, Donna still hadn't made a decision about what to do. She put the thought aside for the time being; it would be better to wait until after the current adventure was over before getting involved in a big messy _thing_ anyway. Especially if it went poorly; should it be, as Bucky had said, time to leave, she wanted to not have to fumble her way through one last run.

The Doctor called them all to the control room with a whistle and explained the situation. “We're in orbit around this planet, Megalon IV,” he said, pointing to a model of the planetary system that was on one of the monitors. “That's where the High Council said the Gem was. The TARDIS has sent out signals, but there's been no response from the Gem or from anyone on the planet. So we're going to have to set down and stick our heads out and try our luck.”

“This sounds like an exceptionally well-thought-out plan with a very low chance of failure,” Steve said. 

“I am in favor of this plan and would like to volunteer my own head to be blown off,” Bucky added. “Oh, wait, no I wouldn't, because that's maybe the dumbest thing I've ever heard.”

“Well, I'd like to see the two of you suggest something better,” the Doctor replied.

“Is there a map or diagram of exactly where we’re going to land?” Steve asked. The Doctor pulled one up and displayed it. There was a bright red “X” that signified the landing spot. “Lots of buildings around if I’m reading this right. Plenty of cover,” he said.

Bucky gently pushed the Doctor out of the way to come up next to Steve. “I could go anywhere here, here or here,” he pointed to the map. “Cover you.”

“Is it me or are they planning a war?” Donna asked, leaning against the rail.

“Best men we could ask for to do the job,” the Doctor said, still grinning as he came to stand next to her. He crossed his arms and watched the other two men plan and plot. “Feels like this could have been back in the day.”

“Not a bad view, either,” Donna said. “Pity they have eyes only for each other.”

“I dunno,” the Doctor said, giving her an appraising glance. “I'd bet if they were invited, they’d give you another look.”

Bucky glanced back. “If you two don’t mind, I think we’ve got something, wanna take a look?”

Donna and the Doctor approached, flanking Bucky and Steve. “What is it?” the Doctor asked.

Steve pointed at a building on the display. “There's an unusual energy signature coming from that building,” he said. “We think that's probably where the Gem is located.”

“All right,” said Donna. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, one other thing,” said Bucky. He punched a button, and the view on the screen shifted to the outside of the TARDIS, displaying a landscape full of wandering humanoids. “I'm pretty sure those aren't normal, but the TARDIS keeps callin' 'em zombies and I don't know what a zombie is. Neither does Steve. You guys got any idea?”

“I'm going to let you take this one, Donna,” the Doctor said. “I've got to go downstairs and see if I can put together some kind of handheld detector so we can follow that energy signature once we're outside the TARDIS.” He vanished out the door.

Donna sighed. “Zombies,” she said. “Really? You don't know zombies?”

Steve shook his head. “Never even heard the word before,” he said. “Help?”

Donna grinned. “They're the undead,” she said. “The walking, shambling, and sometimes groaning undead. They usually eat brains.”

Steve recoiled and Bucky gave a soft sound of disgust. “This is a  _thing_ now?” Steve managed.

Donna laughed. “They're not real! They're from television.” She tapped the secondary monitor. “Can you give me a clip from  _Night of the Living Dead_ , love?”

There was a moment's pause before the movie came up on the screen. Steve and Bucky both studied it for a moment, watching the zombies shamble through the black-and-white picture, and then suddenly Bucky reached out and smacked Steve on the arm. “ _Herbert West - Reanimator_ ,” he said.

“Ohhhhh,” Steve replied, drawing out the sound. “All right.” He rubbed at his cheek. “Hmm. So how do we deal with them? I assume they're victims of the Soul Gem; I wonder if they can be un-” He paused, waving a hand at the screen, and finished, “-zombied?”

“Maybe once we get the gem, stifle it’s energy?” Donna shrugged. “That’s the Doctor’s thing. The only thing I know that’ll stop zombies is a shot to the head.”

“That’s a no-go, unless we're attacked,” Steve said. “Killing should always be the last option.”

“Don’t think the Doc’ll go for that,” Bucky added. “What were you talking about anyway?”

“You two. And I think he might have said he thought I was worth looking at,” she frowned.

“Hey! It’s a start,” Bucky said, patting her on the arm.

“You are a very beautiful woman, Donna,” Steve said. “I’d love it if you’d pose for me, sometime when we're not running for our lives.”

“You draw? Like Bucky? I’ve seen some of his sketches of you,” she said.

“Doll, Steve’s art belongs in a museum. Say yes so I can take you down to the armory and find you some protective gear.”

“Oh! Of course, yes! I’d be honored.”

Steve grinned. “Maybe we can turn it into an opportunity for you to catch the Doctor's attention.” He gave her a nudge with his elbow. “Go with Bucky.”

She went, laughing at something outrageous that he said to her as they passed into the hallway. Steve remained at the console, studying the external footage. The zombies didn't seem to be upset by the presence of the TARDIS; they didn't really seem to be doing much of anything except milling about aimlessly. He watched to see if there was any kind of pattern to their movements, but there didn't appear to be; they just sort of wandered. He scratched at the back of his head, considering that.

The Doctor returned a few moments later, a square metal box in one hand attached by wires to a vest that was covered in circuitry and gadgets. In his other hand was something that looked like a very wide, flat gun. Steve cranked an eyebrow. “And this is?”

“Abnormal energy detector,” the Doctor replied. “Goes _ding_ when there's stuff.”

“I think Bucky was right; you’re not making a very good impression about the future. If you didn’t have the TARDIS, I’d think you were nuts,” Steve said, deadpan.

“I’ll have you know…,” the Doctor spluttered.

“That you’re a genius? A thin wisp of nothing with spiky hair? Not crazy?” Donna supplied, coming back into the room with a protective vest over her clothing. Bucky followed not far behind her, chuckling. “Save the speech for someone who doesn’t know you, Martian.”

Steve broke down laughing. “You’re too easy, Doctor,” he said, clapping the Gallifreyan on the shoulder. He looked over and saw that Bucky had outfitted Donna in a vest and helmet. She was also carrying a wicked looking baton. “You look ready to go.”

“I am, if His Highness has his technology fixed up,” Donna said, nodding to the Doctor.

“Technology,” Bucky repeated, surrounding the word with sarcastic air quotes. 

“Oi,” the Doctor protested, without much heat. “You've been spending too much time with Donna.”

“Oh, gee,” Bucky replied, smirking. “Guess we'll have to stop that. Oh, wait, there's nobody else here for us to play with. Bad luck for you, Doc!”

The Doctor pointed one imperious finger at them, an extremely stern expression on his face. Steve, standing somewhat behind the Doctor, raised one hand and put up bunny ears behind his head. Donna spluttered on a laugh, while Bucky rubbed a hand over his face and tried to fight back his smile. The Doctor cut his eyes toward Steve, who put both hands behind his back and affected an innocent face. The Gallifreyan sighed. “I feel like a grammar school teacher who's lost all control,” he lamented.

“If it helps,” Steve said, “I'm fairly sure you never had control in the first place.” He grinned. “Now, are we following your stuff-dinger or what?”

Harrumphing, the Doctor just turned and made for the door. Steve followed, with Bucky and Donna bringing up the rear. Opening the door slowly, he held out the device, sweeping the wand in an arc in front of him. It hummed, a low whir of machinery, as he frowned at it.

“Which way?” Bucky asked.

“Left,” the Doctor said.

“Slowly then, no sudden movement, keeps your eyes peeled,” Steve said, nodding for the Doctor to lead the way.

The zombies continued to mill around, softly moaning, as they walked out. Every now and then one of the undead brushed up against them, but they didn’t seem even mildly interested in anyone’s brain. “They have to be under the control of the gem,” the Doctor muttered. He stopped, took another reading and then moved forward.

“Because they’re not going after the big brains?” Donna teased.

The Doctor’s mouth ticked up a little at that, but he continued on, watching the device as he went. “No, because they are giving off echoes of the gem’s signal.”

Bucky, who had a modified bolt-action rifle similar to his old M1941 Johnson slung over his shoulder, glanced over at Steve. “I'd feel better if I had the high ground,” he said.

“Not yet,” Steve replied. “We need to stay together right now, and the only way you could get higher ground would be to head up one of the buildings. We don't know what's up there.”

Bucky nodded, not happy with the situation but accepting and following orders. His wrist cannon was out and ready, and he had his right hand resting on the grip of the Sig Sauer in the holster at his hip. “This place is creeping me out,” he muttered, flinching as a nearby zombie gave a particularly thin, high moan.

“You're not the only one,” Donna muttered, keeping close to the Doctor as they walked. “I'd give a lot to _not_ be on the set of _Dawn of the Dead_ right now.”

“We make it outta this with our brains, I wanna see some of these movies you keep talkin' about,” Bucky said. 

“We'll have a week-long marathon,” Donna promised. “All the best zombie movies of the twentieth century. My mate Lisa, she's obsessed with 'em, knows all the best ones. I'll give her a call and have her make us a list.”

“Sounds great, Doll,” Bucky said, baring his teeth in a nervous grin. “Doc, you got any dings on that thing yet?”

The Doctor held up the gun-part, pointing it around. “It's definitely this way,” he said. “We're not close enough yet, though. It's a thousand feet at least. Slow and steady seems to be working so we just keep going.”

“Where would they be hiding the thing?” Bucky wondered, sweeping the area for trouble.

“Anywhere; a vault, a government building, a laboratory. I don’t know enough about this galaxy or this planet to say,” the Doctor said, frowning. He gave the box a whack with a wand and then pointed right. “We need to turn at that alley.”

“I like that even less, Doc,” Bucky said.

“You scout ahead, Buck, we’ll hold here until you give the all clear,” Steve said, holding the Doctor back.

Bucky nodded, splitting off from their small group. He stole over to the alley and disappeared into the shadows. The Doctor opened his mouth to shout something, but Donna was right there, covering it with her hand. “Loud noises can attract them. I prefer your brains on the inside,” she said.

The Doctor nodded. After a few tense minutes, Bucky appeared, waving them forward. They followed him into the alley, which dead-ended at a fire door. The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and went to work on the door; within moments, it popped open and allowed them entry into a plain staircase. The Doctor pointed upward. Steve took point, followed by the Doctor and then Donna. Bucky, his weapons at the ready, brought up the rear.

Two flights up, the box in the Doctor's hands began to whir excitedly; he used his sonic on the first door they came to, and found themselves standing in a plain white hallway that was lined with what looked like science labs. The walls were glass, and each room was full of what looked like a variety of scientific implements; this one resembling a chemistry lab, that one full of plants and looking like a botanist's dream. None of the labs were empty; the zombies shambled as much there as anywhere else. Some of them wore lab coats, but others looked like people who might have wandered in off the streets. None of them paid any attention to the interlopers.

Donna tightened her grip on her baton. It sparked with electricity.

“Don't hit any of us with that by accident, okay, Doll?” Bucky murmured.

“Might hit you on purpose,” Donna threatened, but she was pale under her freckles.

“Pipe down back there,” Steve grumbled. “Doc, you hear anything?”

“Just the zombies,” the Doctor said. Then his machine went _ding_. They all froze in place, turning to face him. He had the gun-thing pointed into a lab across the hallway, and when they looked through the glass, they realized what it was. “A geology lab,” the Doctor murmured. “Of course.”

“So the gem was buried, and some fool dug it up?” Bucky asked.

“Likely. To the layman it would look like an ordinary gem, very similar to an emerald,” the Doctor explained. “If they found it by itself, they would want to take a closer look. You don’t just find a cut gem lying in the ground unless it was put there.”

“What can we expect in there?” Steve asked.

“More of the same, I expect. The Soul Gem may be under a microscope, in a tray or near testing equipment. Everyone needs to be very careful of it,” the Doctor said.

Steve nodded, taking point again. Bucky was with him, going to the other side of the door as Steve prepared to open it. On a three count, Steve opened the door and Bucky swept inside. At his call of “Clear!” everyone entered the lab. There was a lone zombie, bumping into a wall over and over again. The rest of the room looked relatively ordinary. They began to scour for the gem.

“Oh there you are, you beauty,” the Doctor said, striding to the back of the room, where a green glow emanated from a tray.

“Doctor,” Donna warned. But there was no stopping him. He strode right up to the gem - and froze in place as its light fell on him.

***

_Everything was dark; he was weightless, formless in the void._

_And then there was sound._

_::Welcome::_

_::Oh, hello. And where am I?::_

_::You are within Me::_

_::And who are you, when you're at home, then?::_

_::You know who I am.::_

_::Ohh, all right, then. What's the plan, then? Turn me into a zombie, and my mates as well?::_

_::For now, just you. Such brilliance you have, Doctor. Such genius. Such depth of suffering. The boys you have brought with you may be painted with the sauce of pain, but you, My dear Doctor, you have been simmering in it for so many centuries. I assure you, this will be a great pleasure to Me.::_

_And then_

***

“Shit, it's got him,” Bucky whispered.

“Bloody hell,” Donna swore. “What do we do now?”

“Okay, let's think about this,” Steve said. “They dug it up from somewhere, right? So how did they get it back here to this lab, if it zombies people as soon as they get close?”

“Couldn't have,” Donna said. “It must've been inside something.”

“Right, let's find it,” Bucky said. “Preferably without getting too close.”

Donna began moving things around, tossing papers and folders to the floor. Stupid, stupid alien! Why did he have to be so curious? She could throttle him, but first she had to free him from the gem. She moved from desk to desk, getting more and more frantic until she heard Steve’s voice.

“Found it!” He held up a black pouch made of some thick, unknown material. He tossed it to Bucky, who caught it deftly.

“And we get it in here how?” Bucky asked. “Don’t want to get caught like the Doc.”

“Really long tongs?” Donna suggested.

“That's actually not a bad idea,” Steve said. “Are there some?”

“Here,” Donna said, picking them up off a countertop. “But what about the Doctor? We can’t just leave him here.”

“I've got an idea about that,” Bucky said. “Gem first.” He held out his metal hand. “Gimme.” She passed him the tongs, and he circled the Doctor and the gem, studying the situation. “Okay, both of you get back toward the door.”

“Bucky, don't do anything stupid,” Steve said.

Bucky smirked. “Come on, Steve, doing stupid shit's like my whole purpose in life.” He laid the bag carefully on a countertop, in a puddle with its mouth open. Then he squeezed his eyes firmly shut, pointing the tongs in the direction of the gem. “Guide me.”

With Steve's verbal directions, Bucky was able to take up the gem in the tongs, moving it over to the bag and setting it gently inside the bag's mouth. Then, with his metal hand, he got the bag closed tightly over the gem, so that no light was visible. Once that was accomplished, he opened his eyes again, reaching up with his human hand to wipe at the sweat on his forehead. “I don't _ever_ wanna do that again,” he said, blowing out a harsh breath. 

“Now, you said you had an idea about the Doc?” Steve asked. 

“Yeah. I wanna test something,” Bucky said.

“What? Anything,” Donna pleaded, tears gathering in her eyes.

“Step out the door, doll. Stevie, you get outta the way.”

She walked out and stood in the hallway. After a moment, the Doctor turned, following her.

“Oh!” she said.

“With any luck he’ll follow us out,” Bucky said.

Steve studied Bucky. “What made you think of that?”

Bucky shrugged. “Well, for one thing, he's nine hundred years old. It eats souls, right? Well, what's your soul? It's your spirit, it's what makes you _you_. Memories and all that shit, right? So, if he's nine hundred years old, it stands to reason it'd take it longer to eat him than somebody like me or you. Be like havin' a pile of potatoes instead of just one. And since it hadn't let him go yet, I figured it must still be eatin', and if it ain't done yet, maybe there's enough of the Doc still in there to know who we are, or at least to know he needs to stick with us.”

“What would you have done if it hadn't worked?” Donna asked.

Bucky grinned. “Tied a rope around his neck and dragged him along like a captured Kraut.”

She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Like I would have let you.”

“Easy doll, you know I wouldn’t have,” Bucky chuckled lightly. “Come on, we’ll make it so he’s back to his normal self.”

“As normal as a nine-hundred year old alien can be anyway,” Steve said.

Donna nodded and let Bucky guide her back down the hall. Steve followed behind, keeping an eye on the Doctor who shuffled out of the lab, still held in the grip of the gem. The trip back to the TARDIS was not as easy as the trio away had been. The energy of the gem attracted the zombies. They all seemed to start moving towards the trio.

“We need to move faster,” Steve said. “They might look passive now, but I got a feeling they won’t be soon.”

“Not as easy as it looks, Stevie. I think the damn thing is calling out to every single zombie out there.”

They pushed through, finally spotting the TARDIS. Donna held out the key, ready to unlock it as soon as they reached the door. Bucky began to prod at the zombies, moving them out of the way so Donna would have a clear path to the door. Steve joined in, hoping that the gem wouldn’t trigger them into attacking before they got inside.

A low moan began at the back of the gathering crowd. It picked up pitch and volume as it began to roll forward. Bucky shoved faster, clearing the path and dragging Donna behind him more quickly. She nearly fumbled the key as she pushed it into the lock, but the door popped open and Bucky shoved her in quickly, reaching for Steve's arm and pulling him in as well. Steve grabbed the Doctor, dragging him along behind, and slammed the door shut just as the crowd of zombies began to turn violent.

The only trouble was that now they had the Doctor in the control room, and he, too, was at least partially controlled by the gem. “Shit!” Steve swore when the Doctor, his eyes blankly green, started shambling toward Bucky, arms outstretched. He intercepted the Doctor and, as gently as he could, used his shield to push him backward into the jump seat. “Donna!” he called out. “Get me some rope or something!”

The TARDIS obligingly provided them with a coil of rope, and they tied the Doctor neatly into the seat, immobilizing his arms and legs as well. They couldn't stop him from moaning and grunting without gagging him, which Donna would not allow, so they moved to the opposite side of the console and stood there, staring at one another. “Now what?” Bucky said.

Donna and Steve both looked at the pouch in his hand. “I've no idea,” Donna said honestly. “Steve?”

“Not a clue,” he said. “So. In the absence of the Doctor's giant brain, our resident expert on all things that the Doctor either knows or looks up and pretends to know is right here.” He turned to the console, giving it a gentle stroke. “Say, Doll, you got any idea what we ought to do with this thing? We need to get rid of it, preferably permanently, but we also need to make sure the Doc gets his brains back.”

The TARDIS was quiet except for the moaning of the Doctor. Then there was a whirring sound as a panel at the bottom of the console clicked and began to open. There was a brilliant golden-yellow glow coming from it.

“Toss it in there,” Donna said. “But don’t get too close. The Doctor told me about this, that’s her heart, where she stores all her energy. All the power of the universe.”

“Should do the trick,” Bucky said, lobbing the pouch towards the glow.

The pouch was surrounded by the light, the normal humming of the TARDIS getting louder. Then the panel shut and it was quiet again. Really quiet. The Doctor was no longer moaning, nor were the zombies outside.

The Doctor stirred, looking up and shaking his head. “Well, that was different. What did I miss?” he said, grinning at the others.

“You! You, you….” Donna spluttered, storming over to the jump chair. She grabbed his face in her hands, planting a kiss on his lips. He surged into it, struggling against the ropes.

“Think he returns her feelings,” Bucky smirked.

“Just a bit,” Steve said, watching as Donna pulled at the bindings, getting the Doctor free.

The Doctor pushed himself up out of the seat, shaking off the rope, his hands wrapping around her face as he stared down into her eyes. “You said...”

“I changed my mind,” Donna replied. “You said...”

“I know what I said,” the Doctor growled. Then he leaned down, kissing her again, slow and deep, making her whimper softly. Then he took her by the hand and led her out of the control room without even a backward glance toward the super-soldiers still leaning against the console.


	8. Chapter 8

When the door of Martha Jones's New York UNIT office flew open and bounced off the wall behind it, she knew that whoever was entering was full of high dudgeon and wanted her very much to know it. She sat back from her computer, folding her hands and watching with an impassive expression as Nick Fury, current director of SHIELD, stormed into her office and stood over her desk, hands on his hips.

“Nick,” she greeted him, gesturing at the two empty chairs he stood between. “How lovely to see you. I thought you were in Washington. Do take a seat.” She turned and picked up the electric kettle that sat on a small table just within reach. “Cuppa?”

“No, I do not want a damn cup of tea,” he snarled. “I wanna know about that crazy man in the blue box that just appeared out front of my New York branch and stole a valuable asset right out from under my nose.”

Martha put the kettle down again and pinned Fury with a look. “Sit down, Nick.”

Nick sat, rage in his one eye.

“Now, begin at the beginning,” Martha said, waving to her assistant, who was hovering in the doorway. He gave her a nod and pulled the door shut behind him when he left.

Fury took a deep breath and explained about the recovery of Captain America. “He wasn't dead,” he explained, as Martha's eyes got huge and round. “Our best guess is that the cold temperatures worked in concert with the Erskine Serum and put him into a kind of stasis. We were actually able to defrost him, and we were holding him in a facility where he was cared for until he woke up.”

Martha's eyes narrowed. “Define 'facility'.”

Fury sighed. “We built a mock-up of a 1940s hospital room. We'd hoped it would be a more familiar environment where we could explain what had happened to him. Ease him in gently.”

“But you mucked it up,” Martha guessed.

“We had a baseball game on. Turned out, it was from the wrong year - 1941. Rogers was at the game.”

“Lazy research,” Martha tutted. “So he caught on. And then?”

“And then he panicked. Thought he was being held. He broke out of the facility and went running down the street. We caught up to him and I had him calmed down, getting ready to bring him back in, when that crazy man in the blue box showed up. He acted like he knew him, called him by name, waved that metal hand at him, and Rogers jumped right into that box and disappeared.”

Martha frowned. “Metal hand? What - have you got footage? Stills, security video, anything?”

Fury reached into a pocket and tossed her a USB drive. She slipped it into her computer and pulled up the video file, watching the traffic-cam footage. A divot developed between her eyebrows. “That's not the Doctor,” she said. “I don't know who that is.” She bit her lip for a moment, then reached into one of the pockets of her tactical jacket and pulled out a cell phone.

The ringing of a phone stirred Donna from sleep. She lifted her head from the Doctor’s chest, searching out the sound. It was coming from the pile of clothes on the floor. She propped herself on an elbow and stared at her bed partner for a moment. He looked so much younger when he was sleeping. The ringing persisted. She used her free hand to shake him.

“Oi, phone. Next time you’re turning it off before we make it this far,” she said.

“Next time sounds good,” he answered sleepily. He kissed her lightly before moving to find his phone. He looked at the display and smiled. “Martha! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Did you kidnap Captain America?”

“Kidnap is a very strong word,” he said, sitting back down on the bed. Donna scooted up behind him, trying to listen in.

“I’m sitting here with Nick Fury, looking at footage of the TARDIS landing in Times Square. Steve Rogers is leaping into it, after a metal hand appeared. Last time I looked, you didn’t have a metal hand.”

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’. “That would belong to Bucky.”

“ _Barnes? James Buchanan Barnes?”_ a man's voice asked. That must have been Fury, the Doctor thought.

“One and the same. He asked me to find Steve. I got some information and came to get him. Steve came along quite willingly.”

“He’s a hoot, Martha, you’d love him to death,” Donna added.

“Oh, is that Donna? Hello, Donna!” Martha called out. “All right, there?”

“Brilliant, thanks!” Donna replied. “We'd have stopped by while we were in New York but we'd a call, you know how it is.”

“Isn't it always, with Himself?” Martha replied, laughing. 

“Oi!” the Doctor protested.

“ _Could we focus?_ ” the man's voice growled. “ _I want Rogers back here double time._ ”

“Who's that, then?” Donna asked. “He think he's in charge or something?”

“Oh, that's Nick,” Martha said, exasperation clear in her tone. “He runs SHIELD and thinks it makes him important.

“Ooh,” the Doctor said, grinning. “ _Well_ , then. I'll tell you what, _Nick_. I'll check with Steve and see if he's interested in coming by. Hang on a tick.”

The Doctor stood, rooting around for his favorite striped dressing gown. Donna took the phone. “How's Mickey?”

“Brilliant,” Martha said. “He's in Cardiff this week, actually, working on a project with Torchwood.”

“Ooh, ask him to tell Jack hello from all of us,” Donna said. “It's his fault we even knew to come and get Steve, you know.”

“I _have_ to hear this story,” Martha said eagerly. “You've simply _got_ to come by.”

“As soon as Himself gets sorted,” Donna promised. “Oh, here we go.”

The Doctor had gotten his dressing gown on over his pajamas and flung the bedroom door open. Donna, careless in her own pajamas (the ones with the dancing bears, shut it Barnes), followed him up the hallway. Steve and Bucky were in the kitchen - no surprise, with the way they ate - and Donna handed the phone back to the Doctor. He put it on speaker and laid it on the table. “All right,” the Doctor said. “Let's have a quick roll call. Who's there in New York?”

“Martha Jones, Unified Intelligence Task Force,” Martha said.

“Nicholas Fury, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. It's only us.”

“That's a mouthful,” Donna commented. “Donna Noble, fastest temp in Chiswick.”

“Steve Rogers, U.S. Army, Howling Commandos.”

“James Barnes, U.S. Army, Howling Commandos.”

“And I'm the Doctor,” the Doctor finished up. “What can we do for you?”

“I want Rogers back here _now_ ,” Fury said. “We've got a situation, and - ”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Fury,” Steve interrupted, “but I don't answer to you. In fact, I'm pretty sure that, since I was declared legally dead in 1945, I don't actually answer to anybody. So maybe you'd like to rethink whatever you were about to say and start again.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. “Captain Rogers, your country needs you. The world needs you,” Fury ground out.

“The world seems to be doing just fine without me,” Steve said, Bucky right there at his side. “Why would I want to come back?”

“We had the Tesseract,” Fury stated bluntly. “Howard Stark fished it out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think: the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs.”

“You said _had_. Who has it now?” the Doctor asked, looking grim.

“He's called Loki. He's... not from around here,” Fury said.

“Loki? As in the Norse god?” Donna asked.

Fury ignored the question. “There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on, Captain, if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know.”

“At this point I doubt anything would surprise me,” Steve laughed harshly. “I doubt that you, Mr. Fury, have any idea of what I’ve seen since I joined the Doctor. You want me to help you find Loki?”

“No, we have people on that,” Fury said. “What we need is someone to fight him. I'm trying to put together a team of specialists, people who have unique skills and abilities who are specially suited to handle the kinds of threats that regular military just isn't equipped for.”

“Be more specific,” Steve said, “because Bucky and I _are_ regular military.”

“You're not,” Fury replied. “You're the only successful outcome to any super soldier program that we're aware of.” Bucky and Steve exchanged a glance across the table as Fury continued. “In addition to you, there are other people I want to try to bring in. Bruce Banner is one; he was working on a serum project and had a lab accident; he now literally turns into a seven-foot-tall green rage monster when he loses control. Another one is Tony Stark - the son of your friend Howard. He's built himself a flying suit of armor with more weaponry than most people could manage to fit into a double-sized tank. There are others as well.”

“So why me?” Steve asked.

“Two reasons,” Fury replied. “First of all, your abilities as a leader of just this kind of a group. These people are loose cannons, Cap. None of them play well with others, and none of them have experience in any kind of an organized battle setting. You took a group like that, an international and multiracial group at a time when such things were unheard of, and you swept across Europe like a pack of crazed avenging angels. If you could lead the Howling Commandos, you can lead this group. And they sorely need a leader, and I cannot be that person.”

Steve nodded. “And the other reason?”

“Because of who you are,” Fury replied. “You're _Captain America_. And as much of a symbol as you were back in the day, I assure you, you're even more of one today. We _need_ you.”

Steve looked up at Bucky, then at Donna, and then at the Doctor. He felt distantly as if he was being manipulated, and very well, but at the same time, it was possible that Fury was telling the truth. He cocked an eyebrow at the Doctor:  _What do you think?_

The Doctor shrugged.  _It's up to you_ .

Steve sighed. “All right,” he said at last, running a hand over his eyes. “I'm not making any promises about anything, but I'll come and look at what you have.”

Fury's sigh of relief could be heard over the interstellar connection. “Thank you,” he said.

“Mind if we tag along?” the Doctor asked. “I have a vested interest in Earth.”

“Fine,” Fury said, “but you keep a close eye on him and his box, Jones. I don’t need any more people disappearing into thin air.” This declaration was followed by the slam of a door.

There was a long pause. “Is he gone, Martha?” Donna asked.

“Yes. I’ll need to coordinate with SHIELD on this, but we can spare a day, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Martha Jones. Text me coordinates, and we’ll see you in a day,” he said, pressing the end button on his phone. “Are you sure about this, Steve?”

“You don’t have to go, Stevie,” Bucky said.

“We can’t stay here forever, Buck. Besides, if Fury thinks I’m a symbol, wait until he sees both of us. I told you, I’m not doing anything or going anywhere without you by my side.”

Bucky sighed, squeezing Steve’s arm. “Maybe we should revisit those additional attachments for the arm, Doc. I have a feeling they’re going to be needed.”

***

Later that evening, as they waited for the TARDIS to configure the attachments the Doctor had designed, Bucky found Steve on an observation deck, staring out through the glass into the darkness of deep space. “Hey,” he said softly.

Steve turned, smiling when he saw Bucky, and held out his arm. Bucky came to his side, tucking himself next to Steve's torso. He smiled slightly as Steve's arm draped across his shoulders. “Remember how we used to have to do this?”

Steve laughed softly. “I had to sit on the kitchen counter to be tall enough.”

“I didn't care,” Bucky murmured. “You know I didn't care, right, Stevie?”

“I know,” Steve assured him, dropping a kiss on the crown of Bucky's head. He squeezed Bucky's shoulders. “What's on your mind?”

“You said somethin' earlier,” Bucky said. “About how we can't stay here forever. Why not? Why can't we? The Doc never said we had a time limit.”

Steve looked out at the vastness of space before he spoke. “You said the TARDIS explained the serum to you.”

“Yeah, as best she could with my limited science knowledge, why?”

“Doctor Erskine, he told me some things that might happen when I changed. One of them… he said the cells in my body wouldn’t act the way normal cells would anymore. He wasn’t entirely sure, but barring any massively fatal wounds, I’m gonna live a very long time. So are you, if the serum is the same or similar.”

“So we’re what? Immortal?”

“Essentially. The Doctor said he’s over nine hundred, Buck. He’s seen a lot of people come and go. He’s going to see Donna….”

“God, Steve,” Bucky said, squeezing him. “So, we can’t stay because we won’t die?”

“No, we can’t stay because I’ve experienced a life without you, Buck. It wasn’t very long, but I don’t ever want to do that again. And it doesn’t seem like it’s going to matter where we are, but there’s always going to be someone, something to fight. I want to fight for home, Buck. Our home. And if we're there, we're not fighting all the time. We can have down time. I get the feeling that with the Doctor, it’s a never-ending series of adventures.”

“It does seem to be,” Bucky laughed.

“I want to spend lazy mornings in bed with you. I want to walk in the park, go out to eat, see a movie. I want to be with you, not just running off saving people.”

Bucky was silent for a long moment before speaking again. When he did, his voice was soft. “You know I'll follow you anywhere. Jaws of death and all.”

“Even into a brownstone in Brooklyn?”

Bucky gave him a full body shudder. “Just... I'm beggin' you, not the suburbs, okay? After that picture Donna put on last week... I don't think I could take soccer moms and minivans.”

Steve laughed. “No suburbs. I promise.”

Bucky turned in his arms, reaching up and pulling his head down for a warm, slow kiss. Steve's hands slid under the hem of Bucky's Henley, his fingertips trailing across warm skin and well-defined abdominal muscles, and Bucky shivered, his mouth making its way down to Steve's neck. “Bedroom?” he murmured against Steve's pulse.

“No,” Steve said, guiding Bucky down onto the floor, with all of the universe wheeling above them through the glass. “Right here.”

***

The coordinates Martha sent them turned out to be a parking garage in Queens. When they arrived, Martha was alone in the garage, sitting on a concrete barrier with her tactical suit on. She and the Doctor shared an enthusiastic hug when he came out of the TARDIS, and she greeted everyone else with warm smiles and handshakes once he'd let her go. Then she brought them all back inside the TARDIS and shut the door, so that they couldn't be overheard. “Right, then,” Martha said. “I brought you here a bit earlier than I told Fury I would; I've got all the information I could find about what SHIELD's been about. You're not going to like it, any of you.”

“We already know they've been messing around with the Tesseract,” Steve said. “How much worse could it get?”

“Hasn't anyone taught you not to ask that question?” Martha replied. “That was one of the first things I learned.” She shook her head, walking over to the control console. She gave one of the panels a gentle pat of greeting, and then inserted a data card into one of the nodes. “In the course of my trip through SHIELD's secure servers, I discovered references to a project called Phase Two,” Martha said. She stepped back and pointed at the monitor.

Images and data scrolled by quickly. “Wait,” Steve said, pointing. The images stopped. “That symbol. That’s HYDRA. You’re telling us that SHIELD is working with HYDRA?”

“Not sure, really. I’ve known Nicholas Fury for a few years now. It’s not in his nature to be a part of something like HYDRA,” Martha said.

“Then what? HYDRA is somehow connected to SHIELD?” Bucky asked.

“I think so. Some of this data goes as far back as Captain Rogers does. I don’t think Nick knows about this, not completely.”

“Why not completely?” Donna asked. “Should we be worried about meeting with him?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “Whatever is going to happen, we’ll deal with it. How is UNIT going to help us?”

“We’ve got ground and air support, and my men are ready to fight. They follow my orders only, not Fury’s. If something is going to happen, we’re here to fight for Earth, nothing else,” Martha said. “For right now, though, I honestly think the best course of action is to keep this between us. Behave as though we've no idea that this is the case. There's an immediate threat in the form of that rogue Asgardian, and we're going to have to deal with it.”

“Wait, Asgardian? Loki? Loki the son of Odin?” the Doctor asked. “That Loki?”

“Yes, that's the one,” Martha said. “You know him?”

“I've met him a few times. Always seemed a bit priggish, you know, but I rather thought that was a side effect of being bookish and skinny in that family. Has he gone completely off the rails, then?”

“It seems so,” Martha said. She went back to the console and pulled up another video, this one surveillance from the facility where he'd appeared.

They watched him move through the building, wielding his scepter. “Is that some kinda mind control thing?” Bucky said. “That guy was about to shoot him, and he touched him with it and he just... stopped.”

“We believe so, yes,” Martha said. “He appears to be using it to overwhelm the minds of those who oppose him, forcing them to obey him against their wills.”

“Ooh,” the Doctor said, his face squinting up. “There's going to be a lot of trauma therapy after this is over.”

“The man you see here is an agent of SHIELD called Barton. His code name is Hawkeye. He's one of Fury's top operatives, and he's going to be a lot of trouble until he can be brought back to himself,” Martha said. “But Fury's expressly stated that he doesn't want these people killed if it can be helped.”

Bucky nodded. “We can do nonlethal,” he said. He held up his left arm, grinning. “This thing makes a hell of a club.”

“I imagine so,” Martha said. She paused, studying it. “That's future tech,” she commented. “You don't want to let Fury get his hands on that.”

“I'd like to see him try,” Bucky replied, baring his teeth.

“So, what's our next step?” Steve asked. “We go to Fury?”

“Yes,” Martha replied. “He's asked us to convene on his carrier to meet the rest of his operatives.”

“Well, by all means,” the Doctor said. “I'll need somewhere safe to stash the TARDIS.”

Martha grinned. She pulled the door open and pointed to a far corner. “Over there,” she said. “That's my assigned parking spot.”

“Yours?” Donna asked.

“Sure,” Martha replied, grinning. “This is my apartment building. You didn't think I'd bring you to UNIT or SHIELD HQ, did you?”

***

Despite Martha assuring them they’d be provided with weapons, Bucky insisted on raiding the TARDIS’s armory again. “I like weapons I know. How much time do we have before we have to meet Fury?”

“Less than two hours. It’s going to take at least thirty minutes to get you all to transport,” Martha replied.

“What’s the problem, Buck?” Steve asked.

“Just wish I had some time to test out the new additions,” he said, holding up his arm.

“They’ll be fine,” the Doctor assured, waving off any worries.

“They better than that stuff-dinger detector?” Bucky asked, eyebrow raised.

“God, did he bring that old thing out of storage?” Martha groaned. “You couldn’t get the TARDIS to make you anything better?”

“I like when it goes ding,” the Doctor said, face falling.

“Cheer up, Spaceboy, we’re going to meet Tony Stark. I always wanted to go to one of his parties, you know,” Donna said, pulling him close and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Martha gave her a look that said _We’re going to talk about that later_. Donna just smiled.

“It’s your show, Miss Jones,” Steve said. “Where do we go?”

“Come on,” Martha said. “I'll get us where we're going. And it's just Martha, Captain.”

He smiled at her. “Well, then, it's just Steve, Martha.”

“You're as bad as Jack, flirting with everything that moves,” Bucky complained.

“I wasn't flirting!” Steve protested.

“Sure,” Bucky replied, giving him a nudge and a grin. “That's what Jack says, too.”

Laughing, Martha herded them all out and up to the roof of the building. A small, light helicopter waited there, and they all packed into it with Martha at the controls. She piloted it across the river and onto Manhattan, landing on the roof of UNIT HQ. There, another helicopter - this one much larger - waited. They boarded it, and crossed the island to another building, which Martha told them was SHIELD HQ. There, they boarded a quinjet that flew them out into Raritan Bay, where they met the helicarrier. It was in the water just outside of the bay, where it officially became the Atlantic Ocean. A man in a suit, introduced as Phil Coulson, briefed them on the situation during the flight.

When he'd finished with the official information, he paused and said, “I... if I may, Captain... it's an honor to meet you. Officially.”

Bucky nudged Steve's leg with his knee, biting his lip at the starry-eyed expression that was suddenly all over Coulson's face. Steve ignored him, plastering what he hoped was a friendly-and-interested-in-what-you're-saying expression on his face. It was hard to maintain when Coulson continued, “I sort of met you, I... I watched you. While you were sleeping.”

_And that got creepy fast_ , Steve thought as Bucky nudged him again and Donna chortled softly on his other side. 

“I mean, I was... I was present. While you were unconscious. From the ice. You know, it's really just... it's just a huge honor to have you on board.”

“Well, I hope I'm the man for the job,” Steve managed, running a hand through his hair. 

Apparently oblivious to Steve's own awkwardness or the amusement of his companions, Coulson continued. “Oh, you are. Absolutely. Um. We made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input.”

Steve sagged back in his seat. This was going to be a long flight.


	9. Chapter 9

On arrival, they were met by a SHIELD agent called Romanoff. The Doctor was taking everything in, looking this way and that. Donna elbowed him. “Don’t you be getting any ideas.”

“Oh, never. Just trying to see what level of technology we’re dealing with. This… is nothing. Though I must say that Mr. Stark’s suit is quite fascinating.”

“Don’t ever let him hear you say that,” Coulson warned. “He’s got all the genius of his father, none of the humility.”

“Agent Coulson, I can assure you, Howard Stark was anything but humble,” Steve said. “I knew the man.”

“Who are we meeting anyway? Fury said the names Stark and Banner, but I got the feeling there was more.”

“Possibly an Asgardian called Thor,” Romanoff said. “Loki's brother. Coulson, Fury wants you on the bridge. Agent Jones, he's asked if you'd accompany.”

After a glance at the Doctor, Martha nodded and followed Coulson across the tarmac. Romanoff gently herded the small group in a different direction, toward a rumpled and confused-looking man who stood nearby. She introduced him as Bruce Banner. Steve immediately moved to shake his hand. “Dr. Banner.”

Banner looked him up and down. “They told me you'd be coming.”

Steve gave him a nod. “Word is you can find the cube.” 

“Is that the only word about me?”

“Only word I care about,” Steve replied. “Dr. Banner, Agent Romanoff, this is my team: Bucky Barnes, Donna Noble, and the Doctor.”

“Doctor who?” Romanoff inquired.

Donna cackled. “Never gets old,” she said, grinning.

“Bucky Barnes?” Banner was asking. “ _The_ Bucky Barnes?”

Bucky looked down at himself as if expecting to have become someone different. “Only one I know about,” he said.

“Bucky Barnes the Howling Commando?” Banner said. “Captain America's best friend, who disappeared off a train into the Alps in 1945?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “That's me.”

“Gentlemen,” Romanoff interjected, “we might want to take this inside. It's about to get a little hard to breathe out here.” The sentence was punctuated by the sound of large machinery clunking as it moved.

“Is this a submarine?” Steve asked.

Banner scoffed. “Really. They wanted me in a submerged, pressurized, metal container?” The group moved toward the edge of the ship, watching over the edge as the giant turbines began to spin, churning up the water. And then Banner began to smile as the ship slowly lifted off the surface of the water. “Oh, no,” he said. “This is  _much_ worse.”

***

Putting on the new suit was a strange sensation; on the one hand, it was like coming home, to have the star on his chest and his shield (his own shield - no disrespect to the TARDIS, but the replacement always felt... different somehow) on his back; on the other hand, knowing what he now knew about SHIELD and its connection to HYDRA, it made his skin crawl, just a little bit. But he put that aside, and he focused on the Stuttgart mission, and he leapt in front of an energy bolt from Loki's scepter with Bucky just behind him, Donna and the Doctor on the fringes to guide the civilians away from danger.

They fought, and he might have been outmatched without Bucky's help, but with the arrival of Tony Stark in his red-and-gold armor, his sound system screaming some kind of very loud music, it was obvious that Loki was outgunned. He banished his glamour and he raised his hands, and Stark stood down, this weaponry closing up in a way similar to Bucky's own. Steve glanced over at him. “Mr. Stark.”

“Captain,” Stark replied. Then he glanced to his other side, where Bucky stood. “Sergeant.”

“Look, Stevie, the Tin Man got a paint job,” Bucky smirked.

“Buck, be nice,” Steve sighed. “Interesting suit you have there; thank you for the assist.”

“Anytime. Who’s the Scarecrow?” Tony asked, nodding to the Doctor.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve began.

“Tony, please. Mr. Stark was my father. I think you met.”

“I knew him. Glad to see his legacy is strong. As I was saying, Tony, this is the Doctor and that’s Donna.”

The Doctor wandered over finally, holding out a hand. “Tony Stark, I was wondering when we were going to meet you.”

“Doctor, no drooling,” Donna yelled, from where she was still helping guide some people away.

“Fiesty,” Tony said. “I would know, I’ve got one of my own. Come on, let’s get Penn and Teller over there back to the jet.”

“With pleasure,” Bucky said, bringing out his cannon.

“Can I see that?” Tony asked, eyes lighting up and stepping closer to get a better look.

“Sure.” Bucky held his arm out.

Stark's faceplate went up, and he leaned over, examining it closely. “This is amazing tech. Where did you get this? I've never seen anything like it.” He looked up into Bucky's smugly grinning face. “I am the leading name in prosthetic technology on this planet, and I've never seen tech like this before. Where the hell have you been, Barnes?”

“You'd like to know, wouldn't you?” Bucky replied.

“Yes. Yes, I certainly would.” Stark's eyes narrowed, but his mouth began to curl up into a slight grin.

“Okay!” The Doctor swept in, snatching Bucky's arm out of Tony's grasp. “Everyone's met everyone, lovely, let's see about young master Loki here.” He turned to face Loki, who was sitting on the brick steps, looking for all the world like a sullen teenager. “Here, now,” he said. “Does your mother know you're out this far past curfew?”

“Doctor,” Loki growled. “It has been far too long and a few faces ago. I am sure you know that Frigga is not my mother.”

“She did raise you; I think that qualifies,” the Doctor said.

“Oh, but he could give you a bit of a competition for long, tall and skinny,” Donna said, making her way to the Doctor’s side as Steve hauled Loki up.

“Another beautiful woman by your side. It would be a shame if anything happened to her,” Loki said with a smirk.

“You wanna watch that mouth of yours, sonny, or I’ll shut it for ya,” Donna said.

“Take him away, boys,” the Doctor said as Bucky helped Steve cart Loki towards the quinjet.

“So, Doctor, what exactly is it that you do?” Tony asked, walking with them back to the jet.

“This and that. I keep busy,” he said, ignoring Donna’s snort of laughter. “How’s the uh….” he pointed to Tony’s chest.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You know about that?”

“Oh, I know about lots of things,” the Doctor replied, grinning. He pulled his screwdriver out and pointed it at Tony, taking a quick reading. “Oh, very nice,” he said. “You've upgraded from palladium; good choice. Nasty stuff, that. Put a big ugly rash on you, right before you die.”

“Yeah, yeah it did,” Tony said, his eyes narrowing. “How much, exactly, do you know about that sort of thing?”

The Doctor winked, then strolled off to catch up with Steve and Bucky, tossing an arm around Donna when they bumped into each other on the way to the quinjet. Tony, both intrigued and incensed, followed.

By the time they arrived back at the helicarrier, they had been joined by Thor, who - after a bit of initial trouble - greeted the Doctor as an old friend and was extremely pleased to make the acquaintance of his newest companions. He was also apologetic about Loki's behavior. “He only learned very recently that he is adopted,” Thor explained as they sat at the round table on the bridge. “He did not take the news well.”

“I imagine not,” the Doctor murmured. “Is your father still being an offensive arse about the Jotuns?”

“In his defense,” Thor began, but the Doctor waved a hand.

“He needs no defense,” the Doctor said firmly. “Loki is a Jotun, and what your father's done... really, Thor, use the sense you were born with. Why would you adopt a Jotun child and then lie to him his entire life, telling him he's an Asgardian and teaching him to hate Jotuns? Imagine how you'd feel in the same situation!”

Thor frowned, folding his arms and staring down at his hammer. “I... will consider this,” he said softly.

The Doctor patted Thor’s shoulder, going to sit next to Donna at the round table where Steve, Bucky and Agent Romanoff were sitting. Doctor Banner was standing closer to the door, ready to leave if he needed to. They all watched as a video came up on the table top. Fury was putting Loki in a round cell that the Doctor wasn’t entirely sure would hold him. When the video ended, Steve looked up.

“Loki’s going to really drag this out. So, Thor, what’s his play?” he asked.

“He has an army,” Thor said, “called the Chitauri. They’re not of Asgard or of any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth.”

“Not if we have anything to do with it. Do you know the Chitauri?” Donna asked, poking the Doctor, who had been unusually quiet.

He shook his head. “Only stories; the Time Lords never really dealt with them.”

“I want to know why Loki let us take him,” Bucky said. “He’s not leading any army from here. It all seems too… convienient.”

“We have eyes on him at all times,” Natasha said.

“But isn’t Loki a trickster?” Donna asked.

“We should be more concerned about him trying to open another portal,” Bruce pointed out. “That’s why he took Selvig.”

“That's a good point, Dr. Banner,” Steve agreed. “He has the Tesseract; what's the purpose of the rest of this charade?”

“I think it's about the mechanics,” Banner replied. “What do they need iridium for?”

“It's a stabilizer,” Tony interjected, wandering into the room and over to play with one of the computer terminals. “Means the portal won't collapse in on itself; he can open it as wide and for as long as he wants. Must be how he plans on bringing in his army. Barton can get his hands on the rest of the raw materials pretty easily; all they need is a power source. Kick-start the cube and get the portal open.”

“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” Hill inquired.

“Last night,” Tony replied, smirking. “Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers? Am I the only one who did the reading?”

“We didn't get any reading,” Donna said.

“To be fair, though, we wouldn't have read it,” Bucky added, grinning.

“Can we focus?” Steve asked, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. “Does Loki need any particular _kind_ of power source?”

“The cube has to be superheated,” Banner explained. “120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.”

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect,” Tony argued.

“If he could do that, though,” the Doctor interjected, “he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any nuclear reactor on the planet.”

Tony pointed a finger at the Doctor and then moved it to point at Banner. “Finally. People who speak English.”

Steve looked across the table at Bucky. “Is that what just happened?”

***

The scientists adjourned to the lab space that had been set aside for Banner's lab; Steve, Bucky, and Donna were shown to the bunk room that had been set aside for their use. They spent a few minutes sitting in there and staring at one another before Bucky said, “I don't know about you guys, but I feel like even if we're not science experts, the place to be is where they are. At least we can be ready to react if something happens.”

“And I'm not sure how comfortable I feel leaving the Doctor alone to just do amok science with no supervision,” Donna agreed.

Steve sighed. “I was kind of hoping to get out of this suit. It still bunches in weird places.”

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder. “You'll be all right,” he said. “Plus, it's kinda funny how Coulson stutters at you. Think he's got a little bit of a crush.”

“Because that's all I need,” Steve grumbled.

They made their way to the science lab, entering just in time to see Tony Stark poke Bruce Banner in the side with a small electrical probe. “Hey!” Steve exclaimed. “Are you nuts?”

“Jury's still out,” Stark admitted. He peered at Banner. “You really have got a lid on it, don't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?”

“Is everything a joke to you?”Steve asked, glaring at Stark.

“Funny things are,” Stark replied, smirking slightly. 

Bucky and Donna exchanged a glance. Steve snapped, “Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny! No offense, Doc.”

“It's all right; I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things.” Banner smiled slightly, focusing back on his work.

“You're tip-toeing, big man,” Stark said. “You need to strut.”

“And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Sta- OW!” Steve jumped at least four inches, his body twisting in midair as he leapt away from the sudden, painful shock he'd taken to the side of his waist. “Bucky, what the _fuck_?!”

Bucky grinned broadly, holding up his metal hand. Electricity arced between two of his fingers. “Just, you know, testing the new add-ons,” he said. “I didn't get a chance to before we met up with Martha this morning.”

Tony snorted. “I like him. You we keep,” he said, pointing to Bucky. “Still not sure about you, Capsicle, but I’m warming up.”

“You still can’t look at his arm,” the Doctor said.

“Too busy with finding the Tesseract,” he said, pointing to the various displays around the room. “Aren’t you all just a bit curious as to why Fury called us in now? Why not before? What isn’t he telling us? I can’t do the equation unless I do all the variables.”

“Oh! I can help with that,” the Doctor said, bounding over to one of the benches. He whipped out his sonic and pointed it at a monitor. “That should speed it up some.”

“What is that?” Bruce asked.

“How is it powered?” Tony asked at the same time, both of them crowding around the Doctor.

“Oh dear Lord, they’re bonding,” Donna said. “Someone save me from science nerds.”

“Is that the scepter?” Bucky asked, pointing to the table where it sat.

“I think so,” Steve said. “Why?”

“Is it me or is it glowing?”

“It's not you,” Steve replied. “Do any of you geniuses happen to know _why_ it's glowing?”

The Doctor turned and pointed his screwdriver at it. “Interesting,” he said. “It's giving off some very interesting readings. Let's back up a moment, shall we?” He pointed a finger at Tony. “What was it that you were saying about equations and variables?”

“I was saying,” Tony said, his glance now flickering around the entire group, “that something is not right here. Look, Fury's a spy. He's _the_ spy. His secrets have secrets. So why is he calling us in now, and not before? I'm not the only one who thinks this.” He cast a significant glance at Banner.

Banner waved a hand. “I just wanna do my work and go home.”

“Doctor Banner,” Steve said, his voice sympathetic but firm. “This could be important.”

Banner considered for a long time, then took a deep breath, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes. “The thing Loki said, about a warm light for all mankind. I think that was aimed at Tony. Even if Selvig hasn't said anything directly, it's been all over the news about Stark Tower.”

“I've been off-world,” Steve said frankly. “Fill me in.”

“Stark Tower's a building,” Tony said. “My building. I'm very proud of it. Ninety-three floors of me, right in the middle of Manhattan, and powered entirely by an arc reactor.”

“What's an arc reactor?” Bucky asked.

Tony tapped his chest, where a blue glow could be seen through his shirt. “This is, for one thing,” he said. “The one in the tower's a lot bigger, though. It's completely self-sustaining energy. The prototype alone will run itself for at least a year, possibly longer. I'm kinda the only name in clean energy right now.”

“So,” Banner continued, “why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project, if unlimited sustainable energy really is their ultimate goal? For that matter, what's SHIELD doing in the energy business in the first place? It's a little outside of their purview.”

“I should probably look into that,” Tony commented. “Once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files.”

“You're hacking SHIELD?” Donna asked.

Tony smirked. “JARVIS - my personal system - has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide.”

There was an exchange of glances among the TARDIS crew. “That's very interesting,” the Doctor said. “Once you know those secrets, perhaps we should revisit this conversation.”

There was a long silence. Tony's eyes flicked from the Doctor to Donna to Bucky and then to Steve. “You know something,” he said, very quietly. “Captain America knows something.”

Steve shrugged. “I know a lot of things,” he said, returning Tony's smirk with one of his own. “Sometime we might have to sit down and compare notes. I might even know a few things you don't know. I could surprise you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony stared at him for a longer minute, his eyes narrow and searching. Then he said, “Call me Tony.”

Steve grinned. “Only if you call me Steve.”

“I’ll want to hear things about dear old dad. And I can’t wait to find out why robo-arm over there isn’t dead,” Tony said. “But right now we have a glowing scepter problem.”

“I think Loki is hiding something,” Steve said. “He means to start a war and if we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed.”

“All focus here,” the Doctor said. “You’re trying to track the Tesseract’s energy using the scepter?”

“Exactly, when we get a hit, it’ll show up here,” Bruce said, pointing to the monitor the Doctor had soniced.

“When will we know anything?” Donna asked.

“I don’t know,” Bruce shrugged.


	10. Chapter 10

There was a moment of quiet. Then Bucky said, “Well, since you asked, Donna and the Doc here saved my life. Doc's got himself a magic box; they found me in the mountains, took me to a hospital, got me all patched up and a fancy new arm stuck on. And now here I am.”

Steve and the Doctor both stared at him like he'd lost his mind; he shrugged and grinned. A moment later, the real genius of what he'd said sunk in as Tony was completely distracted once more by Bucky's prosthetic arm. He moved to Bucky's side as if magnetically drawn, prodding at the arm and turning it this way and that. Bucky obligingly displayed some of the features, including the wrist cannon, the sonic index finger, and the electrical stun attachment that he'd used to shock Steve.

“How, though?” Tony asked. “Is it a neural relay, or...?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “They wired it into my central nervous system just the same as my old arm woulda been.”

“What kind of sensation experience do you get?”

“It feels just like my old arm. I was tellin' Steve the other day, I even sometimes get itches and stuff.”

“That's psychosomatic,” the Doctor interjected. “You can't _actually_ itch in a metal arm.”

“Yeah, try tellin' that to this rash,” Bucky replied. When the Doctor gaped in astonishment, Bucky cracked up. “You oughta see your face!”

“He's a troll,” Tony said, looking completely dumbfounded. “Bucky Barnes is a troll. No one ever told me this before.” His head whipped around and he stared at Steve. “What don't I know about _you_?”

“Oh, he's a sexual deviant,” Bucky said easily. Steve went red in the face.

Tony swayed a little on his feet. “It's like all my birthdays and Christmases all at once. Please tell me there's film footage.”

“What are you doing, Mr. Stark?” Nick Fury's voice cut over the top of their conversation.

Tony turned. “Uh, kinda been wondering the same thing about you.”

“You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract,” Fury snapped.

“We are,” Banner replied. “Code's compiling. Once we get a hit, we'll have the location of the cube within half a mile.”

“You'll get your cube. No muss, no fuss.” A beep from a nearby terminal caused him to turn, and he spun the monitor to face everyone. “I'm curious, though; what is Phase Two?” 

“Phase Two,” Martha Jones's voice cut in, “is SHIELD uses the Tesseract to make weapons.”

Fury reared back. “You're not even supposed to be on this carrier any more. You did not have authorization to - ”

“I'm UNIT,” Martha replied. “I have authorization for any damn thing I please.” She tossed a gun onto a nearby table; it was very familiar to both Steve and Bucky as a HYDRA weapon, and Bucky said so.

“We gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we were - ”

“I'm sorry, Nick,” Tony interrupted, pulling up a weapons schematic on the screen. “What were you lying?”

Romanoff and Thor came in through another door. Banner turned to her. “Did you know about this?”

“You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” she replied.

He laughed bitterly. “I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed.”

“Loki is manipulating you,” she said. 

“No, he's not,” the Doctor interrupted. “But he's certainly trying.” He pointed his sonic at the scepter, which was glowing brightly. “We need to move either this scepter or this conversation to a different environment,” he said. “I'm going to suggest that the scepter go.” He picked it up, grimacing. “Eugh. Tastes like old socks.” He turned to Martha. “You've got gloves? Put them on. Don't want to touch this bare-handed.”

She pulled her gloves on. He pushed past everyone else and handed the scepter to her. “Take this to the TARDIS,” he told her. “Directly to the TARDIS. It needs to be gotten off this planet if we want to avoid having another year that never was.” He held onto it for just a moment when she took it, staring into her eyes. “Martha. Please tell me you understand what I'm saying.”

She nodded. “Don't worry, Doctor,” she said, her eyes huge and her voice a little shaky. “I understand exactly.”

“Good. Straight to the TARDIS. She'll let you in.”

Martha nodded. The Doctor released the scepter, and Martha turned, darting out of the room. They heard her footsteps disappear as she ran up the hallway. Nick moved to follow her, but Steve blocked the doorway. “I don't think so,” he said. “We're not done talking.”

“Move out of my way, Captain,” Fury growled. 

“Is what he said true?” Natasha asked. “Are you trying to reverse engineer HYDRA weapons?”

“Trying?” Bucky snorting, hefting the gun Martha had dropped to his shoulder. “Think they already did, Red.”

“Are these things true?” Thor asked, looming in the background.

“It’s because of you,” Fury ground out.

“Me?” Thor asked, confused.

“Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone but we are hopelessly… hilariously outgunned.”

“So you would use a thing you do not understand to arm yourselves against us?” Thor said.

“I think he is,” Tony said. “He wants to fight the good fight, and we’re his army.”

“What are you doing to find Clint?” Natasha said, arms crossed over her chest.

“Barton is not the priority, Romanoff. The Tesseract is.”

“He’s my priority. Phil understood that; that’s how he got me to come in.” She paused, staring at him with an expression somewhere between blankness and disbelief. “We’re nothing but pawns to you, Director. I thought I knew you.”

“You do know me, Romanoff,” Fury snapped. “You know that my goals and my purposes are higher than just one single agent.”

She drew herself up straight, squaring her shoulders. “I would remind you, Director, that you know me as well. And you know where my priorities lie.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is that a threat, Agent Romanoff?”

“Director Fury,” she replied easily, “I don't make threats.”

The resulting standoff was broken by an alarm from one of the computers; Banner and Stark ran over to the monitor, the Doctor just behind them, and all three of them leaned to see what it said. Banner poked a few buttons, zooming in on the results. Then he raised his head, staring in shock. “Oh, my God.”

The explosion came as a surprise to everyone, but it galvanized all of them into action. As Fury called out orders to his people over his earpiece, Steve took over in the immediate area. “Tony, wait for me; I'll cover you. Bucky, meet up with Coulson and back him up. Donna, stay with the Doctor. Thor, can you assist Agent Romanoff and Dr. Banner?”

“Yes, sir.” Bucky snapped a salute and took off. 

Thor nodded, moving to the newly-blown-out edge of the room and leaning to see where the two others had fallen. “I will,” he said, and jumped.

Steve turned to Tony. “Let's go.”

Tony ran for his suit, Steve keeping an eye out for trouble as he followed. Hill called over the comms for someone to look at the engine.

“I got it!” Tony said. They ran for the cargo area where the armor was being stored. “Engine three, I’ll meet you there,” he said to Steve, pointing. Steve nodded, taking off.

***

Natasha shook herself, replying to Fury that she was fine. She looked over to Banner, who was being helped up by Thor. Bruce was looking a little green.

“Doctor Banner, are you okay?”

“Give me a minute,” he ground out, struggling to contain his other half. He took several deep breaths, closing his eyes. “Go, I’ll be fine. I need to get back to the signal.”

Thor lifted the pipe off her leg. “Follow me?” she asked the Asgardian. He nodded his head and waited for her to go. She started off, ignoring the pain in her leg.

***

“Nice guns,” Bucky said, when he caught up to Coulson in the armory.

“Not sure what this one does, but I always wanted to find out,” Coulson said, taking down what looked like a large laser gun. “You ready?”

“Always,” Bucky grinned, wrist cannon out and primed.

****

The Doctor dragged Donna back to the bridge. Confusion reigned as Fury rattled off orders and Hill tried to coordinate everyone. “Doctor, this is not the place for you,” Fury said.

“Oh, well then I guess you don’t want to keep your precious ship in the air,” he said.

Fury stilled for only a moment. “What do you need?”

“Just access to your systems; I can use any computer.”

Fury frowned, but pointed to a crew member who stood up and let the Doctor sit. He smiled and began typing.

“Can you do that? Keep the ship in the air?” Donna asked, standing behind his chair and watching him work.

“Maybe; a lot of it depends on Tony.”

“Getting the rotor restarted, you mean?”

“Yes, I rather think - ”

Whatever the Doctor thought was interrupted by a shout of “Grenade!” from Maria Hill; the bridge erupted into chaos as hostiles in SHIELD gear began attacking. The Doctor shoved Donna behind one of the computer banks. “Stay down!” he told her, diving in with her. “We're no good to anyone if we get shot, and the agents are all wearing tactical gear.”

Only a moment later, an arrow whistled past them, jamming itself into a data port. Fury took a shot at the port it had come from, but the shooter was long gone. The ship listed terrifyingly to one side as the computer systems went down, and there were shouts of panic from all around, announcing that the engines were down and the computer systems as well.

The Doctor leapt from his hiding place and sprinted across the bridge, his sonic screwdriver in his hand. He examined the arrow carefully, then snatched it out of the port and applied the sonic to the port itself. Fury called out to the comms about Barton; Romanoff responded that she and Thor were on the way. Stark reported that he was working on getting Engine Three up and running; even as he did so, the Doctor changed the settings on his sonic and applied it vigorously before turning and pointing at someone across the room. “You there!” he shouted. “Smack that box on the wall very hard!”

The woman in question turned, then pointed at the box. “That one?”

“Yes, that one!”

She reached out and gave the side of the box a hearty open-handed whack; when she did, there was a rising whine, and the systems came back up. “Engine One back online!” someone called out.

***

“You know this man, Barton?” Thor asked as they ran to intercept him, darting down catwalks and through the deep underbelly of the carrier.

“He’s my partner,” Natasha answered. She spotted Clint further up a gangway and moved in for the attack.

Thor watched as they fought, waiting for the right moment before jumping in from the other direction to hold Clint. Natasha leveled a kick to the archer's head. He went limp in Thor's arms, the eerie blue that covered his eyes faded, and he groaned. He looked up at her.

“Tasha?” he said groggily.

She punched him out.

***

Bucky followed Coulson to the detention wing. Loki was just exiting his cell. Bucky started to move, but Coulson held him back. “It’s a trick,” he said. “Loki enjoys glamours.”

“Phillip Coulson and James Barnes. Have you come to stop me?”

“Sure gonna try,” Bucky said, leveling his cannon at the demi-god.

“You think you can stop me with a puny weapon from a distant future, boy? I have seen things. I know who you are inside. If your precious Doctor had not come for you…”

He was thrown against the wall by Coulson’s gun. Bucky stared at Coulson, his eyes cutting back and forth between the man and the smoking weapon he held. Coulson just shrugged. “I hate it when they monologue.”

***

Engine Three was back up and running. Steve was rounding up the soldiers under Barton’s command, watching as Tony finished up repairs.

“Is everyone all right?” Bruce’s voice came over the comms.

“So far, so good,” Steve answered. “What’s the problem?”

“No problem. The Tesseract's been located. It's in New York City.”

***

In a quiet infirmary room, Clint slowly came around, muttering as he shook off the last of the ice-blue mental fog.

“Clint,” Natasha told him quietly, “you're gonna be all right.”

“You know that?” he asked, a slightly hysterical laugh on his lips. “Is that what you know?” He muttered some more, trying to force his system to straighten out. She tried to calm him, and he craned his neck, looking up at her. “Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and stuff something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?”

“You know that I do.” 

“Why am I back? How did you get him out?”

She came to sit beside him, gauging the sanity in his eyes, and reached for the soft cuffs binding his wrists. “Cognitive recalibration. I hit you really hard on the head.” Her lips quirked in a semi-smile.

He said, “Thanks.” As she released him, he tried to ask about the casualties; when she refused to answer, he changed his query. “Loki escaped?”

“Nope.” She gave him a real smile then. “Still locked up down in containment. Not sure what Fury's gonna do with him once this is all over.” Her jaw clenched at the thought of Fury and the conversation in the lab before everything went haywire. “Don't suppose you know anything about the plan?”

He shook his head, sitting up. “Didn't need to know. Didn't ask.” He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. “But I suppose I'll sleep better if I get a chance to put an arrow in his eye socket.”

She smiled slightly. “Now you sound like you.”

***

Steve leaned against a wall in a disused hallway, watching Tony pace. “What's going through your mind, Stark?” he asked.

“I'm trying to figure out the play. What's the endgame here? Why New York, and where?”

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “We know he needs a power source. What kind of things are there in New York that he can use?”

Tony paced some more. “The whole point of this play was that he knew, in order to win, he had to take us out. He wants to beat us, to be seen doing it... He wants an audience.”

“Yeah, we caught his act in Stuttgart.”

Tony nodded, wagging a finger as he thought. “That was just the previews, though. This? This is opening night, and Loki, he's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered - ” He stopped, staring at Steve.

Steve stared back.

Tony said, “Son of a bitch.”

***

“Your plan has failed, Brother.”

Loki came around slowly, groaning in pain, to see Thor standing outside the cage he'd just so nearly escaped from. With a heavy sigh, Loki forced himself into a sitting position. “I see,” he said simply.

“I do not understand why you have done these things,” Thor said softly. “But I would have you know this. I do not care whether you are Jotun or Asgardian or Svartalf or even human. You are my brother, and you will always be my brother, and I love you.” He clenched a fist, swallowing hard. “It may be that, as you say, you spent your childhood in my shadow. This was never my intention. But for any slight that you ever felt from me, any pain that I ever caused you, know that I am sorry.”

Loki stared at him, not speaking.

Thor sighed. “I go now to retrieve the Tesseract. We will speak again soon. In the meantime, while I am gone, I beg of you... let this insanity go. If you demand satisfaction of me for whatever insult, then I shall grant it to you at a later time. These people, they are not part of whatever quarrel exists between us. Please... just be calm.”

Loki continued to stare. After a moment, Thor nodded at him, turned, and left the confinement area.

***

“Sir,” said JARVIS as Tony approached the building, “I have turned off the arc reactor, but the device is already self-sustaining.”

“Shut it down, Dr. Selvig.”

Selvig turned, looking up at Tony with that empty blue stare. “It's too late! She can't stop now. She wants to show us something! A new universe!”

“Okay.” Tony lifted his repulsors and fired a full-power blast at the device; it rebounded, knocking Selvig to the floor, unconscious, and blowing Tony backward in the air. 

“The barrier is pure energy,” JARVIS said. “It's unbreachable.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Tony said as the quinjet that had followed him landed neatly on the tower's landing pad. “Plan B.”

He landed near the jet, watching as everyone off-loaded. Donna and Natasha went over to Selvig, turning him over, and he groaned softly. “Dr. Selvig?” Natasha said. She patted his cheek. “Wake up.”

He groaned again, opening his now-clear eyes. “What... what happened?”

Natasha grinned. “Cognitive recalibration,” she said. “Works every time. Doctor, how can we stop this machine?”

“Loki's scepter,” he said, blinking up at her with clear eyes. “The Tesseract can't fight against itself; the scepter can penetrate the barrier and shut the machine down.”

Natasha jerked her head up and shouted to the others. “Where's that damn scepter?”

“I sent it with Martha,” the Doctor said.

“Get it back! Selvig says we can use it to shut this thing down.”

The Doctor reached into his pocket, pulling out an ordinary-looking cell phone. He dialed. “Martha, where are you? On the - good. Do you have the - yes, excellent. No, no, stay put. Hang on a tick.” He hung up, dropping the phone back into his pocket, and then he reached into a different pocket, pulling out a small silver key. He held it up, pinching it tightly between thumb and forefinger.

A moment later, a familiar  _whoosh-whoosh_ filled the air. Steve and Bucky grinned at each other even as the others looked around, searching for the source of the sound. The TARDIS, responding to the Doctor's call, materialized on the far end of the landing pad. He ran for the door, but before he could even get there, Martha was coming out, the scepter in her hand. She tossed it to the Doctor, who tossed it to Natasha, even as the sky split open above them. “Hurry!” he shouted.

Steve sprang over, wrapping himself around her and adding his strength to hers, helping her to push the scepter's point into the power stream. With a weird  _thwip_ sound, the energy stream from the tesseract cut off, vanishing into the sky. The portal closed without a single alien being crossing through it.

“I dunno about anybody else, but I could sure use a drink right about now,” Bucky said, collapsing against a wall.

“What’s your poison, Barnes?” Tony asked, suit still on, faceplate up. “I got a great bar in there, we can test the limits of my liver.”

Bucky smirked. “You wouldn’t stand a chance, Stark.”

“What’s going to happen to Loki now?” Donna asked, tucked up against the Doctor’s side.

“I will use the Tesseract to take him back to Asgard. He will face punishment there,” Thor said. He turned to Coulson. “I only ask that you continue to keep Jane safe.”

Coulson nodded. “Miss Foster will stay in Tromsø for now, but I can make arrangements.”

“Foster? Jane Foster?” Bruce asked. “I've read her work. She’s brilliant. Slightly mad, I think, but brilliant all the same.”

“Why don’t you bring her here, Agent?” Tony said. I’d love to talk to her about bridges and things.”

“We’ll see,” Coulson said. He put a hand to his ear, listening to his comm, and listened. “I'm needed back on the Carrier. Mr. Stark, I would consider it a personal favor if you would extend your hospitality to everyone here until I'm able to return for a full debriefing.

“Oh, sure, Agent,” Tony replied, grinning a bit manically. “What's a little party?”

His jaw twitched, but Coulson nodded. He boarded the quinjet again and it took off, winging back out toward the carrier.

“Now that we’re alone,” Steve said, “I think there’s something you all need to know about SHIELD.” Everyone turned to him, waiting for what he was going to say. “HYDRA isn’t as dead as you think it is,” Steve began.

“What he's tryin' to say is, SHIELD has a HYDRA problem,” Bucky butted in.

“JARVIS didn’t have time to find anything, you sure about this?”

“We’re sure,” Martha interjected. “They were very good a staying hidden. They’ve had years to practice. I think Nick knows something, but I doubt he knows the extent to which HYDRA has its hooks in SHIELD. If you act now, you can bring it down before there’s another crisis.” She extended a data card to Tony. “That's what UNIT knows about this situation, and we stand ready to support the Avengers Initiative in any way that's required.”

“Be very careful what you do with that information, Mr. Stark,” the Doctor said.

Tony grinned a shark's grin. “Oh, I'll be careful,” he replied. “I'll be very damn careful. Don't you worry about a thing.”

***

Very late that evening, Bucky and Steve found themselves standing on the landing pad outside the TARDIS. Her door stood open, evidence of the many fascinated trips the various members of the newly-minted Avengers Initiative had made in and out of it that day, but they were all in Tony's penthouse now, drinking and talking, getting to know one another and feeling out the rough edges among them that would eventually become smooth from use and knowledge.

Through the TARDIS's door, Steve could see the Doctor and Donna standing at the control panel, their heads together, talking quietly. He looked over at Bucky. “It's time,” he said softly.

Bucky sighed. “I was gonna show you so many things,” he said softly. “There's a planet that's made out of ice cream. We went there once, but it was summertime; it was a huge mess. We were gonna go back in the winter, but we hadn't had a chance yet.”

Steve smiled. “I know. But hey.” He reached up and cupped the back of Bucky's neck. “I don't need those things. I've got you. And I think this new earth, this future? It's gonna be enough of an adventure.”

Bucky leaned his forehead against Steve's. “It's gonna be all of that,” he said softly. “Are we ready for this?”

“By ourselves? Hell, no. But we've got a team in there. They're not the Commandos, but they're... they're something new.” He grinned slightly. “Kinda like us. You know, Stark told me earlier that two men can get married in New York now. To each other. I think he was tryin' to yank my chain, you know? Tease me about you? But I checked with Clint, and it's true.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You askin' me to get hitched with you, Rogers?”

Steve shrugged, affecting a casual stance. “You wanna get hitched with me, Barnes?”

In reply, Bucky captured his lips in a deep, hot kiss. When he finally released Steve, he grinned against Steve's lips. “Hell yes.”

Steve laughed into the kiss, pulling Bucky close. Then he pulled back, swung an arm around Bucky’s shoulder and guided him into the TARDIS. Donna looked over her shoulder, smiling softly at them before prodding at the Doctor. He turned and Steve could see from his eyes that he knew.

“Well now, we’ve saved the Earth, we’ll be off soon enough, once we’ve finished hosting everyone,” he said.

“We’re staying,” Steve said. “No offense Doctor…”

“No, no, I understand. New people, back on Earth,” he said, waving his hands around. “And quite a job to do, really, with HYDRA. I understand completely.”

“It’s been an experience, Doc. Don’t think I can thank you enough for bringing me in from the cold,” Bucky said, holding out his hand. The Doctor gave it a quick shake. He turned to Donna. “And you doll, you keep him in line. I wanna hear from you. And keep me in mind as a godfather for any future kids.”

“You,” Donna said, blushing as she pulled him in for a hug. “I want pictures, lots of pictures. Tony gave me his mobile number; I’ll call and get yours as soon as you get phones.”

“How will that work?” Steve asked.

The Doctor just raised an eyebrow. Steve chuckled and held out a hand. “Thank you, Doctor. For everything.”

“Think nothing of it,” the Doctor said, grinning and shaking Steve's hand. “It’s not every day you get to reunite Captain America with his only love.”

“Didn’t turn out too bad for you either,” Bucky pointed out with a smirk.

“Yes, well…” The Doctor said, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. Donna whapped him upside the head. “Ow! Donna!”

“Come on, then,” Donna said. “Let's get your things.”

The TARDIS had already packed for them; their room was completely empty, and all their things waited in a pair of wheeled suitcases at the end of the bed. “I would say that those suitcases ain't big enough for all our stuff,” Bucky said, “but this box ain't big enough for you, Sweetheart.” He reached over and ran a hand down the wall. “We'll miss you. Come back and see us from time to time, yeah? Bring him with you, if you want.”

The lights went pink, then back to their usual white. Bucky and Steve grinned and took that as assent. They grabbed their suitcases and headed out, stopping to hug Donna and the Doctor one last time on the way out. Neither man was ashamed to admit, as the TARDIS disappeared with its familiar cosmic noise, that there were tears in their eyes.

Once the box was gone, Steve took a deep breath and slung an arm over Bucky's shoulders. “Come on,” he said, his voice a bit rough. “Let's go in.”

They brought their cases with them, tucking them in an out of the way corner, and Bucky went to get more pizza while Steve strolled over to the circle of seating. Tony raised an eyebrow at him. “They gone?”

Steve nodded. “They're gone. But Bucky and me, we're gonna stay. Figure we've still got work to do here.” He looked around, taking in the faces of his new team, and gave them all a slight smile. “So,” he said, “anybody know where a coupla guys who've been missing for seventy years can find an apartment in this town?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you're reading this - thank you. Thank you for coming along on this ride with us; thank you for so many kind comments and all the kudos. Thank you for enjoying it and for being willing to suspend disbelief long enough to jump on board. I LOVE EVERYBODY IN THIS TARDIS. 
> 
> ~Rainne (and probably Secondalto, too, but she's in bed.)


End file.
